Accession 


Shelf  No.      X 


X  /?7 


9vec«i  oe£> 


* 


r       M 


W.B.  CLARKE  &CARRUTH, 

Bd'lltHI'lllTH, 

B08TON,     MA88. 


Boston  Monday  Lectures. 

By  JOSEPH  COOK. 


THIRTEENTH    EDITION. 

BIOLOGY.     With    Preludes    on    Current    Events. 

Three  Colored  Illustrations,     nmo ....    $1.50 

"Joseph  Cook  is  a  phenomenon  to  be  accounted  for.  No  other  American  orator  lias 
done  what  he  has  done,  or  any  thins  like  it;  and,  prior  to  the  experiment,  no  voice  would 
have  been  bold  enough  to  predict  its  success."  —  Rev.  Professor  A.  P.  I'eabody  of  Harvard 
University. 

"  The  attempt  of  sundry  critics  to  depreciate  Mr.  Cook's  science,  because  he  is  a  minis- 
ter, is  very  ill  judged.  These  Lectures  are  crowded  so  full  of  knowledge,  of  thought,  of 
argument,  illumined  with  such  passages  of  eloquence  and  power,  spiced  so  frequently 
with  deep-cutting  though  good-natured  irony,  that  I  could  make  no  abstract  from  them, 
without  utterly  mutilating  them. "  —  Rev.  Dr.  T/iomas  Hill,  ex-President  or'  Harvard 
University,  in  the  Christian  Register. 

"Mr.  Cook  is  a  specialist.  Ills  work,  as  it  now  stands,  represents  fairly  the  very  latest 
and  best  researches." —  Ceorge  31.  Beard,  M  D.,  of  Sew  York. 

"  The  book  well  presents  to  outsiders  a  certain  little-known  stage  of  conservative  scien- 
tific thought,  which  they  cannot  reach  anywhere  else  in  so  accessible  and  compact  a 
form." —  Professor  John  McCrady  of  the  University  of  the   South. 

"By  far  the  most  satisfactory  of  recent  discussions  in  this  field,  both  in  method  and 
execution."  —  Professor  Borden  P  Eowne  of  Boston  University. 


TENTH    EDITION. 

TRANSCENDENTALISM.     With  Preludes  on  Cur- 
rent Events,     nmo $1-50 

"Mr.  Cook  is  a  great  master  of  analysis,  ne  shows  singular  justness  of  view  in  his 
manner  of  treating  the  most  difficult  and  perplexing  themes.''  —  Princeton  Review. 

"The  Lectures  are  remarkably  eloquent,  vigorous,  and  powerful."  —  R.  Payne  Smith, 
Dean  of  Canterbury. 

"They  are  wonderful  specimens  of  shrewd,  clear,  and  vigorous  thinking."  —  Rev. 
Dr.  Angus,  the  College,  Regent's  Park. 

"These  are  very  wonderful  Lectures."  —  Rev.  C.  II.  Spurgeon. 

"  The  Lectures  are  in  every  way  of  a  high  order.  They  are  profound  and  yet  clear."  — 
Rev.  Alex.  Raleigh.  D.D.,  London. 

"  These  wonderful  Lectures  stand  forth  alone  amidst  the  contemporary  literature  of  the 
class  to  which  they  belong."  —  London  Quarterly  Review. 


y  US  T    READY: 
ORTHODOXY.    With  Preludes  on  Current  Events.   $1.50 


HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO.,  Publishers. 


Boston  Monday  Lectures. 


HEREDITY, 


WITH   PRELUDES  ON   CURRENT  EVENTS, 


By  JOSEPH   COOK. 


Tlam  6'  uyyiTCku  /?porotc, 
'EadXcjv  air'1  uvdpuv  evyevy  oiTEipav  lEKva.  —  Euripides. 


BOSTON : 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY. 

Cjje  Etbcrsttoc  Press,  Cambrttojrc. 

1882. 


Copyright,  1879, 

By   JOSEPH    COOK. 

All  rights  reserved. 


camhuidge:  printed  at  tue  riverside  press. 


URL 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  object  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectures  is  to  present  the 
results  of  the  freshest  German,  English,  and  American  scholar- 
ship on  the  more  important  and  difficult  topics  concerning  the 
relation  of  Religion  and  Science. 

They  were  begun  in  the  Meionaon  in  1875;  and  the  audiences, 
gathered  at  noon  on  Mondays,  were  of  such  size  as  to  need  to  be 
transferred  to  Park-street  Church  in  October,  1S76,  and  thence  to 
Tremont  Temple,  which  was  often  more  than  full  during  the  win- 
ter of  1S76-77,  and  in  that  of  1877-78. 

The  audiences  contained  large  numbers  of  ministers,  teachers, 
and  other  educated  men. 

The  thirty-five  lectures  given  in  1876-77  were  reported  in  the 
Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  by  Mr.  J.  E.  Bacon,  stenographer;  and 
most  of  them  were  republished  in  full  in  New  York  and  Lon- 
don. They  are  contained  in  the  first,  second,  and  third  volumes 
of  "Boston  Monday  Lectures,"  entitled  "Biology,"  "Transcen- 
dentalism," and  "Orthodoxy." 

The  lectures  on  Biology  oppose  the  materialistic,  and  not  the 
theistic,  theory  of  evolution. 

The  lectures  on  Transcendentalism  and  Orthodoxy  contain  a 
discussion  of  the  views  of  Theodore  Parker. 

The  thirty  lectures  given  in  1877-78  were  reported  by  Mr.  Bacon, 
for  the  Advertiser,  and  republished  in  full  in  New  York  and  Lon- 
don. They  are  contained  in  the  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  volumes  of 
"  Boston  Monday  Lectures,"  entitled  "  Conscience,"  "Ileredity," 
and  "  Marriage." 

In  the  present  volume  some  of  the  salient  points  are:  — 

1.  An  historical  study  of  ancient  Greece  as  illustrating  the 
capacity  of  the  race  to  produce  great  men  rapidly  (Lecture  I.). 

2.  A  defence  of  Aristotle's  definition  of  life  as  "the  cause  of 
form  in  organisms,"  and  of  the  author's  definition  of  life  as  "  the 

v 


VI  INTRODUCTION". 

power  which  directs  the  movements  of  germinal  matter"  (Lec- 
tures II.,  III.,  IV.,  and  VI.). 

3.  A  discussion  of  the  necessary  inferences  to  be  drawn  from 
the  facts  that  a  structuring  power  must  exist  before  tissues  can  be 
structured,  and  that  life  is  the  cause  of  organization,  and  organi- 
zation not  the  cause  of  life  (Lectures  II.,  III.,  IV.,  and  VI.). 

4.  A  defence  of  the  fundamental  and  necessary  beliefs  of  the 
soul  as  originating  from  the  nature  of  the  structuring  power 
existing  previously  to  organization,  and  therefore  as  independent 
of  experience  (Lecture  III.). 

5.  A  consideration  of  the  necessary  beliefs  of  conscience  as 
originating  in  the  nature  of  this  same  structuring  power,  and  as, 
therefore,  independent  of  organization  and  experience  (Lectures 
III.  and  V.). 

6.  A  reply  to  several  materialistic  positions  of  Maudsley,  Dar- 
win, and  Spencer,  concerning  the  causes  of  the  unlikeness  of 
forms  in  organisms  (Lectures  II.,  IV.,  and  VI.). 

7.  The  theory  of  Lotze  as  to  the  union  of  soul  and  body  and 
the  twofold  identity  of  parent  and  offspring  (Lecture  VII.). 

8.  The  author's  theory  on  the  same  points  (Lecture  VIII. ). 

9.  The  laws  of  direct,  reversional,  collateral,  co-equal,  pre- 
marital, pre-natal,  and  initial  heredity  (Lecture  IX.). 

10.  A  discussion  of  the  perfectibility  of  the  race  through  the 
application  of  the  laws  of  hereditary  descent  (Lecture  X.). 

The  committee  having  charge  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectures 
for  the  coming  year  consists  of  the  following  gentlemen :  — 

His  Excellency  A.  H.  Rice,  Governor  Prof.  Edwards  A.  Park,  D.D.s  An. 

of  Massachusetts.  dover  Theological  Seminary. 

Hon.  William  Claflin,  Ex-Governor  Right  Rev.  Bishop  Paddock. 

of  Massachusetts.  Prof.  E.  N.  Horsford. 

Prof.  E.  P.  Gould,  Newton  Theologi-  Hon.  Alpheus  Hardy. 

cal  Institution.  Rev.  J.  L.  Withrow,  D.D. 

Rev.  "William  M.  Baker,  D.D.  A.  Bronson  Alcott. 

Rev.  William  F.  Warren,  D.D.,  Bos-  Russell  Sturgis,  Jr. 

ton  University.  Right  Rev.  Bishop  Foster. 

Prof.  L.  T.  Townsend,  Boston  Univer-  Reuben  Crooke. 

sity.  Samuel  Johnson. 

E.  M.  McTiierson.  William  B.  Merrill. 

Robert  Gilchrist.  Prof.  B.  P.  Bowne. 

Prof.  George  Z.  Gray,  D.D.,  Episco-  M.  R.  Deminq,  Secretary. 

pal  Theological  School,  Cambridge.  B.  W.  Williams,  Financial  Agent. 

HENRY  F.   DURANT,  Chairman. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTURES. 

pasb 

I.     Hereditary  Descent  in  Ancient  Greece     .    .  10 

II.    Maudsley  on  Hereditary  Descent 36 

III.  Necessary  Beliefs  inherent  in  the  Plan  of 

the  Soul 63 

IV.  Darwin's  Theory  of  Pangenesis 95 

V.    Darwin  on  the  Origin  of  Conscience  ....  127 

VI.    What  causes  Unlikeness  in  Organisms?    .    .  148 
VII.    Lotze  on  the  Union  of  Soul  and  Body  ...  178 
VIII.    The  Twofold  Identity  of  Parent   and  Off- 
spring      203 

IX.    Seven  Principal  Laws  of  Heredity    ....  230 

X.    The  Descent  of  Bad  Traits  and  Good    .    .    .  234 

PEELUDES. 

PAGE 

I.    Schools  for  the  American  Indian 3 

n.    The  Future  of  American  Poetry 29 

III.  An  American-Anglican  Alliance 55 

IV.  Is  Death  Disembodiment? S5 

V.      SCIIOBERLEIN  ON  IMMORTALITY 113 

VI.    Financial  Heresies  in  the  United  States  .    .  141 
VII.    AgbjcultubaIi     Colonization    of    the    Unem- 
ployed    109 

VIII.    Scepticism  in  Colleges 193 

IX.    The  Elberfeld  Plan  of  Poor-Belief  ....  219 
X.    The  Lesser  and  the  Greater  Eastern  Ques- 
tion     241 


PUBLISHERS'   NOTE. 


In  the  careful  reports  of  Mr.  Cook's  Lectures  printed 
in  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  were  included  by  the 
stenographer  sundry  expressions  (applause,  &c.)  inchoat- 
ing the  immediate  and  varying  impressions  with  which  the 
Lectures  were  received.  Though  these  reports  have  been 
thoroughlj'  revised  by  the  author,  the  publishers  have 
thought  it  advisable  to  retain  these  expressions.  Mr. 
Cook's  audiences  included,  in  large  numbers,  representa- 
tives of  the  broadest  scholarship,  the  profoundest  philoso- 
ph}',  the  acutest  scientific  research,  and  generally  of  the 
finest  intellectual  culture,  of  Boston  and  New  England  ; 
and  it  has  seemed  admissible  to  allow  the  larger  assembly 
to  which  these  Lectures  are  now  addressed  to  know  how 
the}7  were  received  by  such  audiences  as  those  to  which 
they  were  originally  delivered. 


HEREDITARY  DESCENT  IN  ANCIENT  GREECE. 


THE    NINETY-FIRST    LECTURE     IN    THE     BOSTON 

MONDAY   LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED    IN 

TSEMONT   TEMPLE,   DEC.   10. 


"Et£  dion  (3e?.tIovc  eluot  tovc  Ik  (3e?.n6vuv. 

Aristotle  :  Politics,  iii  8. 

Wohl  dem,  der  seiner  Viiter  gem  gedenkt, 
Der  froh  von  ihren  Tbaten,  ihrer  Grosse 
Den  Hurer  iinterha.lt,  und  still  sich  freuend 
Ans  Ende  dieser  schonen  Reihe  sich 
Geschlossen  sieht !   Denn  es  erzeugt  nicht  gleich 
Ein  Haus  den  Halbgott  noch  das  Ungeheuer; 
Erst  eine  Reihe  Boser  oder  Guter 
Bringt  eudlich  das  Entsetzen,  bringt  die  Freude 
Dor  Welt  hervor. 

Goethe:  Iphiycnia  in  Tauris,  i.  3. 


HEREDITY. 


i. 


HEREDITARY    DESCENT    IN    ANCIENT 

GREECE. 

PEELTJDE   ON   CTJEEENT  EVENTS. 

"Which  is  the  cheaper,  to  fight  the  American  In 
dians,  or  to  civilize  them  ?  Which  is  financially  the 
wiser,  savage  butchery  used  against  savages,  treach- 
ery employed  against  treachery,  Indian  agents  worse 
than  the  savages  themselves  to  match  these  deci- 
mated tribes ;  or  a  policy  of  justice,  a  style  of  action 
now  recommended  by  two  administrations  at  least, 
although  first  inaugurated  when  William  Penn,  with 
a  sound  heart  and  wise  head,  sailed  up  the  Dela- 
ware? [Applause.]  Only  a  few  drops  of  Quaker 
blood  were  ever  shed  by  an  Indian.  The  heathenish, 
electrically  infernal  creature  which  we  call  a  savage 
does  treat  us  much  as  we  treat  him.  We  have  GO,- 
000  Cherokees  who  are  civilized  and  quiet,  and  they 
cost   us    almost  nothing;  but  we  have  10,000  wild 


4  HEREDITY. 

Apaches,  and  the  government  pays  yearly  to  the  army 
that  takes  care  of  them  $2,000,000.  We  spend  now 
about  85,000,000  a  year  in  gifts  to  the  Indians,  or  in 
the  support  of  soldiers  to  keep  them  in  order.  Offi- 
cial statistics  published  lately  show  that  the  Indian 
war  in  Florida  cost  $50,000,000  ;  the  Sioux  war  of 
1852  and  1854,  $40,000,000 ;  the  Oregon  Indian  war 
of  1854  and  1855,  $10,000,000  ;  the  Cheyenne  war  of 
1864  and  1865,  $35,000,000 ;  the  Indian  war  of  1860 
with  the  Sioux,  over  $10,000,000 ;  the  war  of  1867 
with  the  Cheyennes,  $40,000,000.  Gen.  Sherman  says 
that  the  cost  of  caring  for  the  Indians  of  New  Mexi- 
co by  the  army,  from  1846  to  1860,  was  $100,000,- 
000.  Thus  the  fact  stands  out  beyond  all  contro- 
versy, that,  for  the  past  forty  years,  the  military 
operations  of  the  nation  against  the  Indians  have 
cost  on  the  average  $12,000,000  annually. 

Do  you  say  that,  after  all,  the  Indian  is  dying  out? 
The  President  of  the  United  States  reminds  us  that 
the  American  savage  is  not  on  the  verge  of  evanes- 
cence. The  statistics  that  I  have  before  me,  from 
official  sources,  assert  that  in  1864  the  number  of 
schools  among  the  Indians  was  only  89,  and  in  1873 
it  was  2,600.  In  1864  the  number  of  scholars  among 
the  Indians  in  the  United  States  was  261 ;  ten  }^ears 
later  it  was  9,000.  In  1864  the  number  of  acres 
farmed  by  the  Indians  was  only  1,800 ;  in  1873  it 
was  297,000.  In  1864  the  number  of  bushels  of 
wheat  raised  by  the  Indians  in  the  United  States  was 
44,000  ;  ten  years  later,  288,000.  The  value  of  their 
animals  in  1S64  was  $4,000,000;  in  1873  it  was 
$8,900,000. 


HEREDITARY  DESCENT   TN   ANCIENT   GREECE.        5 

The  truth  is,  that  the  closest  observers  understand 
veiy  well  that  the  poor  Indian,  who  has  been  on  the 
point  of  vanishing,  has  made  up  his  mind  not  to 
vanish !  If  a  just  policy  could  prevail,  if  the  advice 
given  by  the  honored  executive  of  this  nation  to 
the  Indian  chiefs  a  few  months  ago  at  the  White 
House  could  be  followed,  we  should  find  the  figures 
astounding  us  ten  years  hence  more  than  they  do 
now,  by  indicating  an  increase  of  more  than  ninety 
per  cent  in  the  number  of  acres  farmed  by  people 
who  once  were  savages  or  half-breeds. 

There  is  a  popular  misapprehension  on  the  point 
of  the  decadence  of  the  Indian  race.  It  is  true  that 
they  are  unwilling  to  cultivate  the  land ;  it  is  certain 
that  they  are  haughty  at  the  hoe-handle :  but  when 
we  walk  among  their  wigwams,  and  contrast  what 
we  see  there  to-day  with  their  condition  ten  years 
ago,  a  few  marvellous  facts  must  fix  our  attention. 

Let  us  pace  to  and  fro  in  this  encampment  far 
away  on  the  Red  Lake  agency  in  Minnesota.  The 
Indians  at  the  agency  number  1,100,  and  the  reser- 
vation contains  3,000,000  acres  of  land.  What  have 
these  Indians  done  in  a  year?  I  am  reciting  an 
official  report;  and  I  find  that  these  1,100  Indians, 
or,  putting  out  the  very  young  and  the  very  aged, 
say  about  1,000  persons  that  can  handle  an  agricul- 
tural implement,  have  raised  7,000  bushels  of  corn, 
an  excess  of  1,000  bushels  over  any  preceding  year; 
2,000  bushels  of  potatoes,  and  430  bushels  of  other 
vegetables ;  have  cut  250  tons  of  hay ;  made  5,000 
pounds   of  maple-sugar  —  I  wish   I   were   there  !  — 


6  HEREDITY. 

gathered  600  bushels  of  berries ;  caught  750  pouiida 
of  fish,  all  of  them  probably  as  beautiful  as  any  ever 
taken  in  the  Adirondacks ;  and  have  captured  $14,- 
000  worth  of  furs,  and  made  1,000  yards  of  matting. 
-*  One  thousand  people,  7,000  bushels  of  corn ;  that  is 
seven  bushels  apiece :  $14,000  worth  of  furs ;  four- 
teen dollars  the  result  of  the  trapping  of  each  man. 
It  is  evident  that  they  have  done  better  at  trap- 
ping than  at  most  other  things ;  but  have  you  farmers 
on  these  desolate  stretches  and  pine  barrens  between 
Cape  Cod  and  Mount  Wachusett  done  better  with 
your  ^ricultural  products  ?  Have  many  in  the  fat- 
ness of  the  Mohawk  Valley,  or  the  Mississippi,  done 
better?  No  doubt  this  is  a  favorable  specimen  of 
the  action  of  the  Indians  on  a  reservation. 

But  we  transfer  this  audience  to  the  Lake  Superior 
agency  in  Wisconsin.  We  find  the  Indians  extremely 
anxious  to  have  their  reservation  improved.  They 
express  themselves  as  willing  to  do  without  clothing 
and  blankets,  if  they  can  have  a  schoolhouse  and 
teacher.  One  of  them  has  built  a  house  himself, 
and  furnished  it  as  white  men's  houses  are  furnished. 
He  has  a  bedstead,  cups  and  saucers,  plates,  knives, 
forks,  and  spoons,  and  a  No.  8  cook-stove.  What 
does  this  indicate  ? 

"  He  brushes  his  hat  o'  mornings : 
What  should  that  bode?  " 

Much  Ado  about  Nothing,  act  iii.  sc.  2. 

Should  not  an  abundance  of  encouragement  be  given 
to  such  enthusiasm  ?    There  is  undoubtedly  a  change 


HEREDITARY   DESCENT   IN   ANCIENT   GREECE.        7 

when  we  compare  the  present  time  with  ten  years 
ago.  Here  is  an  officer  whose  language  we  shall  do 
well  to  weigh  verbatim:  "Two  things  were  notice- 
able :  first,  the  cleanly  appearance  of  all  the  Indians. 
I  saw  no  sights  from  which  to  turn  with  disgust,  as 
upon  former  visits ;  and  I  could  not  but  remark  this 
change.  Three  years  ago,  when  I  first  visited  these 
bands,  I  found  them  dirty,  ragged  and  filthy,  lazy 
and  ignorant,  in  a  degree  beyond  any  thing  I  had 
ever  imagined.  Their  blankets,  clothing,  and  hair 
were  perfectly  alive  with  vermin ;  and  they  had  the 
woodlands  covered  with  birch-bark  wigwams.  To- 
day I  found  them  generally  dressed  in  civilized  cos- 
tume, their  hair  combed,  and  their  faces  and  clean 
white  shirts  showing  that  some  one  has  taught  them 
the  use  of  soap  and  water."  First  chapter  of  the 
gospel!  "The  absence  of  the  birch-bark  wigwam 
assures  me  that  many  have  taken  advantage  of  the 
teachings  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Holt,  and  built  houses  in 
which  to  live  and  entertain  their  friends."  But  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Holt  wished  to  institute  a  manual-labor 
boarding-school,  and  what  was  their  only  trouble? 
There  was  nothing  in  their  pockets,  because  you 
put  nothing  there.  They  desired  to  establish  a  dis- 
trict school  on  that  agency.  The  little  building  they 
possessed,  they  had  to  close  early  in  June,  because 
of  the  lack  of  funds.  But  all  through  the  Indian 
reservations  we  find  the  desire  for  little  churches 
and  little  schools,  especially  manual-labor  boarding- 
schools,  increasing. 

A  significant  Indian  scene  lately  occurred  at  Wash- 


8  HEREDITY. 

ington.  "  Build  us  a  big  cabin  for  our  children,  and 
teach  our  young  people  as  you  do  your  own,"  said  a 
large  group  of  not  wholly  barbaric  chiefs  to  Presi- 
dent Haj-es  at  the  White  House.  "  Give  us  wagons 
with  four  wheels.  Send  us  priests,"  was  their  phrase  ; 
"  and  we,  little  by  little,  will  learn  to  use  the  land, 
now  that  our  hunting-grounds  are  gone."  In  order 
to  impress  their  sincerity  upon  the  Executive  and  this 
nation,  they  went  away,  and  meditated  two  days 
upon  the  answer  they  should  make  to  the  advice 
of  the  president,  and  finally  threw  off  their  savage 
robes,  —  the  costume  which  indicates,  with  the  In- 
dian, the  victories  he  has  obtained,  a  kind  of  heraldry, 
of  which,  of  course,  he  is  as  proud  as  ever  noblemen 
were  of  theirs  in  the  Old  World,  —  and  then  these 
poor  children  of  the  wilderness  returned  to  the  White 
House  in  civilized  costume,  and  before  the  gaze  of 
the  nation  made  speeches  through  the  mouths  of 
their  shrewdest  men,  clamorous  for  wagons,  school- 
houses,  and  churches.     [Applause.] 

We  find  the  better  class  of  the  savages  desiring 
these  institutions ;  and  the  report  that  comes  back  in 
case  after  case  is  simply,  "  Schools  shut :  no  funds." 
In  hurried  America,  luxurious  and  plenteous  in  its 
products  of  all  sorts,  there  is  not  penuriousness,  but 
there  is  carelessness.  It  is  difficult  to  attract  public 
attention  to  these  themes.  If  a  little  opportunity 
here,  in  presence  of  scholars,  is  given  to  put  the 
trumpet  to  the  lips,  you  must  pardon  me  for  employ- 
ing it.  There  is  not  only  great  need,  but  very  great 
necessity  indeed,  of  following  up  our  governmental 


HEREDITARY   DESCENT   IN   ANCIENT    GREECE.        9 

aid  by  private  effort.  There  has  been  a  pride  in  tie 
Anglo-Saxon  race,  ever  since  parliament  was  found- 
ed, in  doing  things  without  the  support  of  the  king. 
We  do  not,  like  the  Communists,  depend  on  the  gov- 
ernment to  pay  our  taxes  and  protect  us  at  the  same 
time.  The  government  never  fleeced  us,  and  we  do 
not  ask  the  government  to  do  every  thing.  We  have 
depended  altogether  too  much  on  Congress  to  take 
care  of  these  savage  tribes.  Undoubtedly  two  ad- 
ministrations have  done  well ;  but  we  must  supple- 
ment governmental  activity  by  aiding  the  best  agen- 
cies of  the  religious  denominations. 

Whatever  carries  the  schoolhouse,  the  agricultural 
implements,  the  church,  the  teacher,  to  the  Indian 
reservations,  ought  to  have  behind  it  a  breath  of 
public  sentiment,  vigorous  as  any  north  or  south 
wind  that  ever  pinched  us  in  winter  or  blessed  us  in 
summer.  We  must  carry  to  the  red  men  the  hearts 
of  Boston  and  of  New  York,  and  piece  out  the  hearts 
of  some  Indian  agents  who  are  not  saints.  [Ap- 
plause.] It  has  been  suspected  that  Professor  Marsh 
of  Yale  College  told  the  truth  lately  concerning  Red 
Cloud.  I  beg  your  pardon;  I  did  not  intend  to 
discuss  politics  here;  but  it  is  a  suspicion  of  some 
in  Boston,  that  poor  beef  was  sold  to  the  Indians,  and 
that  Red  Cloud  had  really  a  murky  cloud  of  just 
complaint  behind  him.  Secretary  Schurz  has  recently 
affirmed  (Dec.  2),  in  an  official  document,  that,  in 
his  opinion,  the  present  machinery  of  the  Indian 
service  is  not  sufficient  for  the  prevention  or  dis- 
covery  of    abuses   and    fraudulent   practices.      The 


10  HEREDITY. 

attempt  to  bring  thievish  Indian  agents  to  justice,  he 
says,  "  is  very  like  catching  birds  with  a  brass  band." 
Poorly  paid  and  miserably  dishonest  officials  have 
fleeced  the  Indians,  and  counteracted  the  effect  of 
our  schools.  The  agent  is  there,  the  missionary  is 
there,  your  teacher  is  there ;  and,  if  there  cannot  be 
funds  enough  put  into  the  hands  of  those  who  are 
teaching  and  preaching,  we  may  be  sure  that  the 
agents  who  wish  to  fleece  the  Indians  will  in  some 
way  obtain  funds  enough — not,  of  course,  from  the 
Indians,  but  by  taking  the  supplies  that  come  to 
them  through  the  general  government.  For  one,  I 
greatly  admire  the  Indian  policy  of  our  honored 
Executive  as  expressed  in  his  address  to  the  Indian 
chiefs  a  few  days  ago.  If  you  do  not,  I  shall  make 
no  apology  for  being  political  so  far  to-day  as  to  say 
that  better  sense  has  not  often  been  uttered  to  the 
savages  than  President  Hayes  urged  upon  those 
chiefs  a  few  days  ago  in  the  East  Room  of  the  Capi- 
tol at  Washington.  [Applause.]  But  that  sense 
needs  cents  behind  it.     [Applause.] 

THE   LECTURE. 

It  were  a  felicity,  if,  in  opening  the  topic  of 
Hereditary  Descent,  this  audience  could  assemble 
on  the  Acropolis,  and  with  the  eyes  of  history  and 
science  gaze  abroad  from  the  Parthenon  upon  the 
transfigured  landscape  of  ancient  Attica.  Let  us 
suppose  ourselves  standing  in  the  Parthenon,  behind 
the  pillars  in  whose  shadows  once  fell  the  footsteps 
of  Pericles,  Euripides,  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  Demos- 


HEPwEDITARY  DESCENT   IX  ANCIEXT   GREECE.     11 

thenes.  Yonder  on  the  slope  of  the  brown  pasture 
is  the  semicircular  enclosure  called  the  Pnyx,  where 
the  audiences  of  Demosthenes  and  Pericles  were 
accustomed  to  assemble  in  the  open  air  to  listen  to 
the  yet  unequalled  orations,  which,  next  to  the  dia- 
logues of  Plato  and  the  loftiest  Greek  dramas,  were 
the  best  product  of  Athens  in  her  supreme  hour. 
Among  the  groves  of  the  Cephissus  within  sight  are 
the  gardens  up  and  down  which  Plato  walked  many 
a  year,  and  in  which  all  of  us,  according  to  our  cul- 
ture, have  in  thought  more  or  less  often  paced  to 
and  fro.  There  was  the  Academy.  This  is  a  modern 
word.  On  the  other  little  Athenian  stream,  the  Ilis- 
sus,  stood  Aristotle's  Lyceum.  That  term  is  singu- 
larly familiar  in  the  latest  civilization.  At  one  corner 
of  the  Acropolis  we  have  a  slope  running  down  to- 
ward the  south-east  sun ;  and  in  it  is  scooped  a 
semicircle,  partly  in  the  earth,  partly  in  the  rock, 
uncovered  in  1862  by  Hofbaurath  Strack's  German 
shovels.  Here  is  the  spot  where  the  auditors  of 
jEschylus  and  Sophocles  sat  when  they  listened  to 
the  sublime  dramas  which  were  the  true  pulpit  of 
ancient  Greece.  Some  of  the  chairs  there  have  on 
them  carving  so  perfect  that  you  find  a  lion's  claw 
still  savagely  sharp,  although  sculptured  when  the 
Scots  and  Picts  yet  harassed  the  barbaric  British 
isle.  We  look  next  on  the  spot  where  Socrates  is 
said  to  have  drunk  the  poison,  and  to  have  gazed 
toward  the  sunset  when  he  told  his  weeping  disciples 
that  they  might  bury  him  after  his  death  if  they 
could  catch  him.     Here  is  a  scarped  ridge  of  reddish- 


12  HEREDITY. 

gray  rock,  historically  loftier,  perhaps,  than  any  other 
Athenian  summit,  and  certainly  more  easily  visible 
through  the  dun  smokes  of  distance  than  any  of  its 
companion  heights.  We  call  it  Mars  Hill;  and  on 
it  was  made  a  speech  which  eighteen  centuries  have 
heard,  and  to  which  eighteen  more  will  listen.  This 
audacious  address  in  the  presence  of  a  city  filled 
with  temples  of  gods  in  marble,  and  underneath  the 
shadow  of  Minerva  and  the  Acropolis,  face  to  the 
face  with  the  immemorial  customs  of  polytheism, 
asserted  the  existence  of  one  personal  God,  omnipo- 
tent, omnipresent,  and  in  conscience  tangible.  To- 
ward the  west  the  white  sacred  road  to  Eleusis  passes 
over  the  low,  thinly-wooded  heights  of  Daphne. 
Parnes  yonder  juts  sternly  into  the  northern  sky, 
with  a  few  streaks  of  vapor  clinging  to  his  gnarled 
and  barren  sides.  In  the  east  is  Hymettus,  and  in 
the  north-east  Pentelicus ;  beyond  it  Marathon ;  and 
in  the  opposite  direction  gleam  the  straits  of  Salamis. 
What  has  all  this  to  do  with  hereditary  descent? 

1.  This  ancient  Attica  opened  her  arms  to  emi- 
grants from  Phoenicia,  Egypt,  Asia  Minor,  and  all 
the  teeming  shores  of  the  Mediterranean. 

2.  The  social  life  of  Athens  in  the  classical  age 
was  such  that  only  very  able  men  could  take  any 
pleasure  in  it ;  and  no  other  city  on  the  globe  offered 
equal  attractions  to  such  men. 

3.  Able  emigrants  were  attracted  to  a  city  giving 
exceptional  privileges  to  the  able,  and  only  to  the 
able. 

4.  Thus  arose  a  system  of  partly  unconscious  selec- 
tion.    (See  Galton,  Hereditary  Genius.') 


HEREDITARY  DESCENT   IN  ANCIENT   GREECE.     13 

The  structure  of  the  Athenian  law  courts  obliged 
every  accused  citizen  to  defend  himself  by  a  speech 
before  a  jury,  and  thus  made  oratory  indispensable 
to  success  in  any  prominent  career.  An  Athenian 
jury  often  contained  five  hundred  men.  Every  free 
citizen  needed  as  much  to  know  how  to  make  a 
speech  as  how  to  bear  arms.  George  Grote  says 
that  the  Athenian  law  which  required  every  accused 
citizen  to  defend  himselt  before  juries  made  it  as 
necessary  for  rhetoric  to  be  taught  to  the  free  man  as 
for  strategy  in  war  to  be  learned  by  the  military  por- 
tion of  the  population.  You  remember  that  Socrates 
defended  himself  before  the  jury-court  which  tried 
him.  It  was  a  political  and  social  necessity  for 
Athens  to  have  teachers  of  rhetoric,  logic,  and  poli- 
tics. Great  schools  sprang  up  in  rhetoric ;  and  the 
free  men,  who  were  obliged  to  know  how  to  speak  in 
public  for  themselves,  made  good  audiences  for  the 
orators  and  poets  and  philosophers.  Little  by  little, 
as  there  were  good  hearers,  there  came  to  be  good 
speakers.  "  It  is  the  audience  that  makes  the  ora- 
tor," Demosthenes  used  to  say.  The  free  men  had 
little  on  their  hands  but  their  civil  duties.  They 
were  aristocrats.  There  was  a  great  population  of 
slaves ;  and  of  course  we  abhor  Athenian  customs 
in  this  particular.  But  unless  a  man  had  ability,  as 
well  as  a  certain  amount  of  wealth,  it  was  difficult 
for  him  to  hold  a  position  in  ancient  Athens.  He 
dropped  easily  into  the  artisan  class.  Emigrants 
were  called  in,  but  they  were  sifted  as  fast  as  they 
came.     All  of  the  average,  and  the  lower  than  aver* 


14  HEREDITY. 

age  rank  in  ability,  were  likely  to  drift  into  the 
artisan  class.  The  upper  order  contained  a  great 
mass  of  exceedingly  able  individuals.  Perhaps  there 
never  has  been  such  a  development  of  genius  as  oc- 
curred after  this  unconscious  natural  selection  began 
in  the  unrolling  of  Athenian  history. 

5.  In  two  centuries,  or  from  £00  to  300  B.C.,  the 
Greek  race  produced  the  following  illustrious  per- 
sons, twenty-eight  in  number  :  — 

These  were  statesmen  and  commanders — Milti- 
ades,  Leonidas,  Themistocles,  —  mother  an  alien, — 
Aristides,  Cimon,  Epaminondas,  Phocion,  Pericles. 

These  were  philosophers  and  men  of  scie.  ice  — 
P}rthagoras,  Socrates,  Hippocrates,  Euclid,  Plato, 
Aristotle. 

These  were  poets  —  Anacreon,  iEschylus,  Pindar, 
Euripides,  Sophocles,  Aristophanes. 

These  were  architects,  sculptors,  and  artists  — 
Apelles,  Phidias,  and  Praxiteles. 

These  were  historians  —  Herodotus,  Thucydides, 
Xenophon. 

These  were  orators  —  ^sebines  and  Demosthenes. 

6.  Almost  without  exception  these  twenty-eight 
men  were  either  born,  nurtured,  or  educated,  in  At- 
tica ;  and  they  all,  without  exception,  owed  inspira- 
tion to  her. 

7.  But  take  Attica  alone,  and  we  find  that  in 
a  single  century  she  produced  fourteen  of  these 
twenty-eight  illustrious  men. 

8.  Attica  contained,  in  the  best  days,  of  Greece,  a 
population  of  only  about  ninety  thousand  free  per- 


HEREDITARY   DESCENT   IN  ANCIENT   GREECE.     15 

sons.  She  had  forty  thousand  resident  aliens,  and  a 
laboring  and  artisan  population  of  four  hundred 
thousand  slaves. 

Little  Attica  physically  resembles  Eastern  Massa- 
chusetts. It  is  a  desolate  stretch  of  pine  barrens. 
The  agricultural  class  never  could  have  been  numer- 
ous there.  Wherever  you  irrigate  the  soil,  however, 
it  has  almost  a  tropical  fatness ;  and  undoubtedly 
the  rich  banks  of  the  Cephissus,  which  to-day  remind 
you  of  the  shores  of  the  Nile,  were  originally  much 
more  widely  spread  into  the  brown  dun  of  the  gen- 
eral landscape  around  Athens  than  they  are  to-day. 
Wherever  there  is  no  irrigation,  a  vigorous  sunlight 
comes  down,  and  burns  up,  not  the  grasses  merely, 
but  the  orchards  and  almost  the  pines.  The  stalwart 
evergreen,  which  in  Norway  grows  half  as  high  as 
the  magnificent  monument  yonder  on  Bunker  Hill, 
is  stunted  in  Attica  until  in  most  cases  it  is  a  shrub. 
Only  in  the  gorges,  where  its  roots  are  watered  by 
springs,  does  it  attain  a  natural  size.  This  barren 
little  territory  had  in  it,  in  the  century  from  530  to 
430  B.C.,  ninety  thousand  free  persons,  not  enough 
to  make  a  city  of  respectable  size.  These  were 
native  and  free  born,  or  had  obtained  full  rights,  if 
emigrants.  Scholars  are  very  well  agreed  as  to  these 
statistics.  Elaborate  investigation  has  been  applied 
to  the  topic,  and  we  do  not  need  at  present  to  go 
carefully  into  the  proof  that  this  was  the  population 
of  ancient  Attica. 

9.  The  population   of  any  country  renews  itself 
about  three  times  a  century. 


16  HEREDITY. 

10.  Suppose,  therefore,  that  we  have  in  the  great 
century  of  Athenian  history  two  hundred  and  sev- 
enty thousand  free-born  persons,  —  that  is,  three 
times  the  ninety  thousand.  Of  these  there  would 
be  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  thousand  and  ninety 
males.  Of  these  one-half,  or  sixty-seven  thousand 
five  hundred,  would  survive  the  age  of  twenty-six, 
and  one-third  the  age  of  fifty. 

11.  There  was,  therefore,  in  free  Attica,  in  her  best 
century,  one  illustrious  man  to  every  four  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  twenty-two  above  the  age  of 
twenty-six,  or  say  one  to  every  jive  thousand  of  mature 
men. 

There  is  the  fact.  This  is  what  the  human  race 
can  do.  That  one  to  every  five  thousand  of  mature 
Greek  men  in  Attica  was  illustrious,  is  an  absolutely 
indisputable  circumstance,  on  which,  standing  here 
with  the  audience  upon  the  Acropolis,  I  desire  you 
to  fasten  your  attention  as  a  headlight  in  the  per- 
haps tortuous  labyrinth  of  our  discussion  as  to  the 
natural  laws  of  descent.  Galton  in  his  work  on 
Hereditary  Genius  (American  edition,  p.  341)  makes 
several  mistakes  in  dates,  but,  from  a  narrower  in- 
duction, arrives  at  this  same  result,  —  that  one  in 
five  thousand  of  mature  men  of  the  great  age  of 
Athens  was  in  such  a  sense  distinguished  that  to  this 
hour  we  are  proud  to  make  these  men  our  teachers 
in  philosophy,  oratory,  poetry,  and  art.  The  sug- 
gestive course  of  thought  pursued  by  Galton  is  freely 
used  in  this  discussion,  and  is  credited  to  him ;  but 
so  many  changes  in  the  way  of  enlargement  and  cor- 


HEREDITARY   DESCENT   IN   ANCIENT   GREECE.     17 

rection  have  here  been  made  in  his  propositions,  that 
he  is  not  represented  by  this  lecture. 

Compare  this  average  with  that  of  any  nation 
of  Europe  since  the  classic  age  of  Athens.  Where 
is  the  man  in  modern  Europe  that  we  shall  put 
beside  Socrates?  Where  are  the  men  in  England 
who  are  fit  to  stand  side  by  side  with  Aristotle  and 
Plato?  Where  is  the  name  in  art  that  can  match 
that  of  Phidias  ?  I  am  not  underrating  modern 
times,  but  I  beg  you  to  consider  the  stretch  of 
duration  since  Greece  fell.  We  have  had  twenty 
centuries,  and  Greece  had  less  time  than  has  elapsed 
since  our  fathers'  feet  pressed  Plymouth  Rock.  The 
narrow  territory  of  Attica  produced  fourteen  illustri- 
ous men  in  less  time  than  has  now  gone  by  since 
the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill.  Greece  gave  birth  in 
two  centuries  to  the  marvels  of  human  attainment 
and  endowment  represented  by  these  twenty-eight 
names. 

12.  In  two  thousand  years  all  Europe  has  not 
brought  forth  an  equal  number  of  men  as  illustrious 
as  twenty-eight  Greeks  were  who  appeared  within 
two  hundred  years.  In  twenty  centuries  the  whole 
world  has  hardly  produced  as  many  important  addi- 
tions to  the  roll  of  honor  among  leaders  of  thought 
and  action  as  Greece  made  in  six  generations. 

13.  Estimated  according  to  the  rules  of  science, 
the  average  ability  of  the  Greek  race  was  greatly 
higher  than  that  of  the  modern  English  and  Ameri- 
can. Galton  and  other  British  writers  assert  that  it 
was  as  much  higher  than  that  of  the  loftiest  race  on 


18  HEREDITY. 

the  globe  to-day,  as  the  ability  of  that  proudest  race 
is  higher  than  that  of  the  African. 

Perhaps  if  we  place  Bacon  by  the  side  of  Plato, 
and  Michael  Angelo  by  the  side  of  Phidias,  our  esti- 
mates will  produce  no  great  debate.  But  when  we 
have  mentioned  Shakspeare  and  Milton,  when  we 
have  taken  into  view  five  or  six  statesmen,  we  very 
soon  find  that  we  are  running  outside  the  range  of 
two  hundred  years.  Take  the  two  thousand  years 
since  Greece  fell,  sum  up  all  the  brilliant  stars  in  the 
historic  firmament  of  those  twenty  centuries,  and 
there  is  no  more  light  in  all  that  wide  heaven  than 
in  the  single  Greek  constellation  of  Orion,  or  in  the 
compact  Athenian  Pleiades,  which  blaze  close  about 
us  as  we  stand  here  on  the  Acropolis.     [Applause.] 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  average  free-born 
citizens  of  Athens  could  listen  to  the  orations  of 
Demosthenes,  and  immediately  vote  at  the  close  of 
them.  We  have  these  orations  written  out  by  him- 
self; and  Rufus  Choate  used  to  say  that  there  is  not 
an  audience  in  the  United  States,  except  the  judges 
and  lawyers  of  the  Supreme  Court,  that  could  bear 
such  condensation  of  matter.  Some  one  has  remarked 
that  you  cannot  strike  a  word  out  of  Milton  with  a 
trip-hammer.  It  may  be  said  of  the  orations  of 
Demosthenes,  that  the  most  powerful  impact  of  iron 
and  brass  will  not  strike  out  a  single  stone  from  the 
rhetorical  monument  he  has  raised  to  himself,  and 
not  to  himself  only,  but  to  the  audiences  who  could 
follow  him  with  delight.  Athenian  citizens  had  been 
so  trained  in  public  debate,  and  had   so   educated 


HEREDITARY   DESCENT    IN   ANCIENT   GREECE.     19 

themselves  to  defend  their  own  causes  before  the  law 
courts,  that  they  were  not  only  pleased,  but  de- 
manded, to  be  addressed  in  the  style  exemplified  in 
these  marvellous  oratorical  compositions.  Contrast 
that  ability  of  the  average  Athenian  free  population 
with  that  of  our  leisured  and  propertied  class !  Look 
into  the  libraries  of  our  wealthier  citizens  !  Go  into 
the  mansions  and  club-rooms  and  lyceum-halls  of 
people  who,  in  Athens,  would  have  been  free-born ! 
Have  we  an  Athenian  intellectual  taste  ?  Are  we  as 
keen,  even  in  the  modern  Athens,  as  men  were  on 
these  slopes  around  the  Acropolis  on  which  we  stand? 
Remember  that  in  the  ancient  days  there  were  no 
newspapers.  Demosthenes'  orations  were  often  not 
only  editorials,  but  telegraphic  despatches.  When 
Cicero  appeared  before  the  people  in  the  Roman 
forum,  and  said  of  the  conspirator  Catiline,  "Abut, 
excesit,  evasit,  erupit"  ("He  has  gone,  he  has  es- 
caped, he  has  broken  forth"),  that  was  news.  Now, 
what  if  there  had  appeared  that  morning  an  editorial 
in  the  Roman  Times,  Tribune,  or  Advertiser,  giving 
the  same  incident?  Cicero,  no  doubt,  would  have 
been  shorn  of  many  of  his  thunderbolts.  The  news- 
paper was  not  a  rival  of  the  platform  in  classic  days, 
nor  was  the  book  to  such  an  extent  as  it  is  now. 
Therefore  the  orator  was  inspirited  as  he  is  not  in 
modern  times.  There  never  will  come  a  day,  perhaps, 
when  oratory  will  have  again  such  power  as  it  had  in 
Athens,  arid  once  at  Rome.  Look  into  the  average 
book-stalls,  and  especially  into  our  railway  collections 
of  rubbish,  and   into   popular,  or  Congressional,  or 


20  HEREDITY. 

any  other  assemblies  as  large  and  frequent  as  those 
addressed  by  Demosthenes  from  the  Athenian  Bema. 
We  find  ourselves,  although  free  men,  not  quite 
Athenian,  even  in  New  England. 

14.  Athenian  greatness  declined  for  several  rea- 
sons: — 

Morality  grew  lax. 

Marriage  was  unfashionable  and  avoided. 

Many  of  the  most  ambitious  and  accomplished 
women  were  evil,  and  so  childless. 

Luxury  brought  in  physical  vices. 

The  mothers  of  the  incoming  population  were  of 
a  heterogenous  class.  (Galton,  Hereditary  Genius, 
p.  343.) 

Is  it  possible  that  any  one  has  suspected  that  I 
have  led  you  up  the  Acropolis  in  order  to  seek  there 
for  some  volcanic  rift  breathing  forth  the  more  than 
Tartarean  blackness  of  the  sulphur  smoke  of  free 
love,  or  of  the  leprous  dreams  of  a  philosophy  which 
thinks  that  sound  ideas  concerning  hereditary  descent 
are  its  exclusive  property  ?  Have  you  supposed  that 
I  have  come  to  this  temple  of  the  gods  to  forget 
Athenian  history?  Do  you  think  that  we  have 
climbed  up  the  heights  of  this  glorious  age  of  Greece 
to  find  that  the  cause  of  the  strange  sublimities  that 
salute  us  here  is  disloyalty  to  natural  law?  Over 
the  Acropolis  and  over  Boston,  over  Plymouth  Rock 
and  over  Mars  Hill,  over  the  Academy  of  Plato  and 
the  Lyceum  of  Aristotle,  and  over  every  poet's  walk, 
every  philosopher's  study,  every  preacher's  kneeling 
figure  in  modern  days,  bend  the  same  meridians  of 


HEREDITARY  DESCENT   DST   ANCIENT   GREECE.     21 

natural  law !  [Applause.]  We  shall  find  history  in 
the  ancient  day  faithful  to  the  latest  voice  of  science 
as  uttered  even  by  Spencer  in  the  modern  day ;  that 
is,  to  monogamy. 

No  doubt  political  oppression  hastened  the  deteri- 
oration of  the  Greek  race ;  for,  after  Athens  became 
a  Roman  town,  she  did  not  attract  great  men.  Of 
course  she  continued  to  be  a  teacher.  She  taught 
her  own  conqueror ;  and  we  have  abundant  evidence 
that  the  power  of  her  glorious  race  continued  for  a 
while.  But  there  was  lacking  in  it  the  purity  which 
belonged  to  the  great  era.  The  noblest  age  of  Rome 
came  out  of  monogamy.  The  old  Etrurians  believed 
in  the  family.  The  stalwart  men  who  founded  the 
city  of  the  Seven  Hills  obftiined  their  stalwartness, 
as  every  man  has  since,  by  obedience  to  natural  law. 
We  find  that  when  Athenian  greatness  declined,  mar- 
riage was  being  giveri  up,  absolutely  indescribable 
vices  were  permeating  the  luxurious  society  of  the 
wealthier  age  of  Athens,  and  with  looseness  of  life 
came  in  the  various  forms  of  intellectual  effeminacy. 
Rottenness  is  the  mother  of  littleness.  The  pygmy 
is  always  born  of  disloyalty  to  natural  law.  [Ap- 
plause.] Athenian  society  became  such  that  men 
who  were  not  possessed  of  high  endowments  could 
succeed  in  it ;  and  thus  the  natural  selection  ceased, 
and  the  brilliancy  of  Greece  in  history  declined. 

15.  Although  we  have  but  two  centuries  of  Greek 
experience,  that  little  arc  exhibits  the  possible  results 
of  obedience  to  the  natural  laws  of  hereditary  de- 
scent, and  shows  of  what  the  human  race  is  capable. 


22  HEREDITY. 

16.  If  we  could  raise  the  average  standard  of  civil- 
ization one  grade,  in  both  its  moral  and  its  intellec- 
tual departments,  extraordinary  changes  would  occur. 
The  cause  of  events  is  to  be  found  very  largely  in 
the  thought  of  a  few  illustrious  men. 

17.  Natural  law  is  now  what  it  always  has  been. 

18.  Standing  here  on  the  Acropolis,  we  have  the 
right,  therefore,  to  proclaim  on  the  authority  of  his- 
tory and  science,  that  once,  by  purity  and  power  at 
their  best,  the  number  of  illustrious  men  born  has 
been  one  in  five  thousand,  and  that  it  can  be  this 
again  through  the  operation  of  the  same  unvarying 
causes. 

Do  you  doubt  this?  and  are  you  more  or  less  scep- 
tical concerning  the  operation  of  the  law  of  heredi- 
tary descent  in  modern  and  even  in  ancient  days  ? 

Who  was  Aristotle  ?  He  was  the  founder  of  the 
Peripatetic  school.  He  has  been  the  teacher  of 
twenty-two  centuries.  Who  was  his  father?  Nico- 
machus,  a  friend  and  physician  to  Amyntas  II.,  king 
of  Macedonia.  He  was  the  author  of  works  on 
medicine  and  science.  We  have  lost  his  manu- 
scripts ;  but  the  father  of  Aristotle  was  a  man  of 
extraordinary  ability  and  remarkable  culture.  Who 
was  Aristotle's  grandson  ?  Nicomachus  again. — the 
name  recurs,  —  and,  according  to  Cicero,  this  grand- 
son was  the  author  of  the  book  we  call  the  Nicoma- 
chian  ethics,  —  a  work  generally  attributed  to  Aris- 
totle. Who  was  Aristotle's  cousin?  Callisthenes, 
the  philosopher  who  accompanied  Alexander  the 
Great  to  the  East.  The  mother  of  that  Callisthenes 
was  Hero,  a  near  relative  of  Aristotle. 


HEREDITARY  DESCENT   IN   ANCIENT   GREECE,     23 

Who  was  JEsclrylus  ?  He  was  the  leader  of  all 
Greek  poets,  and  perhaps  superior  to  Sophocles,  and 
even  to  Euripides.  He  was  not  only  king  of  poets, 
but  renowned  as  a  warrior.  "Who  was  his  brother  ? 
Cynajgeirus,  who  fought  side  by  side  with  iEschylus 
at  Marathon.  On  this  Acropolis  there  was  once  a 
painting  commemorating  these  two  brothers  for  their 
action  on  that  battle-field.  Who  was  his  second 
brother  ?  Ameinas,  who  commenced  the  attack  on 
the  Persian  ships  at  Salamis.  Who  was  his  nephew  ? 
Philocles,  who  was  victorious  in  a  poetic  combat  with 
Sophocles.  Who  were  other  nephews?  Euphorion 
and  Dion,  who  were  four  times  victorious  in  poetic 
contests,  and  founded  a  tragic  school  which  lasted 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  years. 

Who  was  Cromwell?  The  first  American.  Who 
was  his  first  cousin?  Hampden  the  patriot,  —  the 
second  American.  You  do  well  to  remember  these 
names  with  gratitude;  for  Macaulay  says  that  Hamp- 
den and  Cromwell  were  once  on  shipboard  in  Eng- 
land with  the  intention  of  coming  to  America  for 
life.  Cromwell,  Hampden,  and  Milton  were  the  first 
Americans.  The  first  cousin  of  Cromwell  was  Hamp- 
den the  patriot ;  another  cousin  once  removed  was 
Edmund  Waller  the  poet.  The  son  Henry  behaved 
with  gallantry  in  the  army. 

Who  was  William  Pitt?  A  man  who  gave  Eng- 
land dignity  in  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe.  Who 
was  his  son?  The  man  who  throttled  Napoleon 
between  1783  and  1801,  and  1804  and  1806,  as  pre- 
mier of  a  power  whose  drum-beat  was  heard  in  all 


24  HEREDITY. 

the  zones.  Among  his  relatives  were  Lady  Hester 
Stanhope,  George  Grenville,  and  Lord  Grenville,  who 
himself  was  premier. 

Who  was  Lord  Macaulay  ?  His  grandfather  was  a 
Scottish  minister  of  Inverary,  who  was  mentioned 
by  Johnson  in  his  account  of  his  trip  to  the  Hebrides. 
His  father  was  Zachary,  an  abolitionist,  who  began  a 
war  which  had  its  completion  in  the  American  civil 
contest.  [Applause.]  Zachary  Macaulay  was,  in 
many  respects,  a  greater  man  than  his  son.  Bal- 
anced, deeply  philosophical,  a  massive  soul,  he  went 
to  the  coast  of  Africa,  he  bore  persecution  there,  and 
he  bore  it  for  a  while  with  Wilberforce  in  England,  in 
order  to  carry  past  its  breaking  that  earliest  slowly- 
rising  wave  of  anti-slavery,  of  which  we  now  hear 
the  retreating  murmurs,  half  a  million  corpses  borne 
floating  within  its  green  breast.  Who  was  his  uncle? 
Colin  Macaulay,  a  general,  a  right-hand  man  of  the 
Duke  of  Wellington  in  his  Indian  campaigns.  Who 
was  another  uncle?  Aulay  Macaulay,  a  distin- 
guished controversialist.  Who  was  his  first  cousin? 
John  Heyrick,  head  master  of  Eepton,  a  renowned 
scholar.  Who  was  his  nephew?  George  Trevelyan, 
a  member  of  parliament  and  junior  lord  of  the  treas- 
ury, and  author  of  "  Cawnpore." 

Assembled  here  upon  the  Acropolis,  look  about 
upon  all  the  summits  of  intellectual,  moral,  and  so- 
cial development,  and  you  will  find  a  sun  rising 
behind  them,  —  a  truth  to  which  the  ages  have  as  j'et 
hardly  listened,  —  that  blood  means  God.  Behind 
many  clouds  there  brightens  slowly  in  the  rear  of 


HEREDITARY   DESCENT   IN   ANCIENT   GREECE.     25 

these  summits  in  Attica,  in  Germany,  in  France,  in 
England,  a  meek,  soft,  overawing  dawn  splendor, 
prophetic  of  new  eras.  We  think  we  stand  already 
upon  the  heights  of  illumination  concerning  natural 
law.  There  is  a  day  beneath  the  horizon,  and  only 
its  faintest  upstretching  auroras  are  yet  visible  in 
the  present  human  knowledge  and  observance  of  the 
laws  of  hereditary  descent.     [Applause.] 


n. 

MAUDSLEY  ON  HEREDITARY  DESCENT. 

THE  NINETY-SECOND   LECTURE   IN   THE   BOSTON 

MONDAY  LECTURESHIP,   DELIVERED  IN 

TREMONT   TEMPLE,   DEC.    17. 


Quel  monstre  est-ce,  que  cette  goutte  de  serrience,  de  quoy 
nous  sommes  produits,  porte  en  soy  les  impressions,  non  de  la 
forme  corporelle  seulement,  mais  des  pensements  de  nos  peres. — 
Montaigne. 


From  the  hand  of  Him  that  loves  her  ere  she  sees  the  day, 
the  soul  comes  like  a  habe.  Springing  from  her  blessed  Maker, 
she  quickly  turns  to  that  which  yields  her  joy.  —  Dante:  Purga- 
torio,  xvi.  84. 


II. 

MAUDSLEY  ON  HEREDITARY  DESCENT. 

PRELUDE   ON   CURRENT   EVENTS. 

There  is  an  Eternal  Power  that  makes  for  right- 
eousness ;  there  is  also  an  Eternal  Power,  not  our- 
selves, that  makes  for  beauty,  and  this  is  the  only- 
unerring  critic  of  poetry.  What  is  to  be  the  future 
of  American  literature  ?  Ask  the  Supreme  Powers, 
rather  than  the  Boston  critics!  How  long  are  our 
best  productions  to  express  the  heart  of  the  ages? 
Ask  the  Court  and  the  Throne,  and  not  New  York 
or  Cambridge  or  Concord !  It  is  turning  out,  here  in 
America,  that  only  those  who  live  near  the  Throne 
can  be  enthroned.  We  reverence  permanently  only 
the  authors  who  live  near  the  Court.  Probably 
Thanatopsis  is  the  earliest  American  poem  that  will 
be  remembered  five  hundred  years  hence ;  but  that 
production  is  not  yet  seventy  years  old.  This  is  the 
seventieth  birthday  of  Whittier,  and  he  is  older  than 
American  poetical  literature.  Our  New  England 
prose  and  poetry  think  much  of  themselves,  and  the 
world  thinks  much  of  them ;  but  what  do  the  Su- 
preme Powers  think  of  American  literature  ?  Their 
opinion  ought  to  be  ours. 

29 


30  HEREDITY. 

Undoubtedly  the  American  literature  of  the 
future  will  be  largely  influenced  by  our  past ;  and  so 
we  ought  to  thank  Providence  that  in  the  first  two 
hundred  years  of  our  development  we  have  not  had 
a  Byron,  great  or  small,  and  that  nc  Sardanapalus 
rules  our  cities  of  the  soul  as  yet.  Now  that  woman 
has  come  into  literature,  it  may  be  hoped  that  Eng- 
lish poetry,  in  spite  of  a  Swinburne  now  and  then, 
is  permanently  purified ;  and  we  are  English.  "  The 
American,"  Lowell  says,  "is  the  •Englishman  re- 
enforced."  All  English  literature  up  to  Milton  is 
the  hereditary  personal  property  of  Americans  as 
much  as  of  Britons.  Our  poetry  has  native  roots 
not  only  in  Shakspeare  and  Chaucer,  but  also  in 
Virgil  and  Homer.  On  the  spiritual  map  Boston 
is  nearer  Athens  than  is  any  capital  of  Europe. 
When  a  Schliemann  uncovers  at  Mycenae  one  of 
the  heroes  of  the  Iliad,  American  Hellenism  stands 
at  the  tomb  with  bated  breath.  A  shiver  of  glad- 
ness runs  through  all  articulate  speaking  men,  when 
Homer  is  found  to  be  not  a  myth,  but  a  person  in 
whom  even  a  Gladstone  can  believe  as  a  reality. 

The  roots  of  the  literature  of  America,  however, 
are  watered  from  a  very  peculiar  atmosphere ;  and  it 
may  well  be  that  the  coloring  of  our  poetry  in  the 
future  will  take  something  of  breadth  from  our  dem- 
ocratic development.  It  is  a  strange  thing,  that  one 
of  the  English  schools  of  criticism  finds  the  best 
American  poetry  in  the  savage  prose  halloo  of  a 
Whitman.  His  barbaric,  literary  war-whoop,  a  few 
think  distinctively  American.     If  the   breath  of  it 


MAUDSLEY  ON   HEEEDITARY  DESCENT.  31 

could  be  modulated  somewhat,  if  the  patriotism  in  it 
could  be  retained,  and  adequate  respect  for  the 
canons  of  both  taste  and  morals  infused  into  it,  no 
one  would  object  to  the  distinctively  American  traits 
in  his  uncouth  anthems. 

Two  oceans,  and  many  rivers  and  lakes  and  moun- 
tain-ranges, have  yet  to  lift  up  their  voices  in  Ameri- 
can song.  We  have  still  to  learn  what  the  great 
Sierras  can  do  for  literature,  and  what  the  Yosemite 
can  say  to  our  poets.  On  the  barren  shore  of  New 
England  our  harp  has  been  struck  in  presence  of 
the  Atlantic  and  of  historic  memories.  England  is 
in  sight  from  Boston,  but  not  from  the  Yosemite. 
America  catches  the  proper  key-note  for  her  harp 
only  when  she  takes  her  seat  on  the  ridge  of  the 
continent,  —  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  Andes,  — 
and  listens  to  those  coming  ages  of  which  the  noise 
as  yet  is  but  an  obscure  rustle.  She  has  reasons  for 
believing  that  ultimately  American  audiences  will  be 
as  large  as  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  She  sits  on  the 
heights  of  the  Sierras,  and  remembers  that  she  has 
eleven  million  square  miles  of  arable  land  in  North 
and  South  America,  while  all  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa 
together  have  only  ten  million  square  miles  through 
which  the  plough  can  be  profitably  passed.  Although 
less  than  half  the  size  of  the  Old  World,  this  conti- 
nent, as  scholars  assure  us,  can  maintain  a  larger 
population  than  the  Old.  The  Rocky  Mountains 
d.'id  the  Andes,  as  a  central  line  among  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  crowded  age  of  the  planet,  are  likely 
to  be  the  heights  from  which  ultimately  the  greatest 


32  HEREDITY. 

assemblages  J>f  men  may  be  addressed.  I  look 
toward  the  sunset  fcr  the  Parnassus  of  the  future. 
The  chief  notes  of  the  American  harp  may  yet  be 
struck  in  sight  of  the  Pacific.  As  dwellers  in  a 
land  which  Hegel  loved  to  call  the  continent  of  the 
future,  we  may  well  patronize  that  which  is  distinc- 
tively national. 

If  we  have  ever  had  a  national  lyrist  laureate,  has 
that  poet  not  been  he  whose  spirit,  like  a  flame  of 
Hebrew  fire,  moved  before  us  in  the  dark  days  of  the 
anti-slavery  contest,  and  more  effectively,  I  think, 
than  any  other  one  poetic  light,  guided  us  across  the 
sands  and  through  the  waters  to  the  promised  land? 
[Applause.]  There  are  three  circles  of  leaders  of 
thought :  those  who  are  in  the  universities,  and  teach 
what  has  already  been  established;  cultivated  men 
outside  the  universities,  and  who  are  pioneers  often ; 
and  then,  above  these  two  ranks,  we  have  the 
prophets,  or  those  singers  who  are  near  the  Throne. 
If  on  this  continent  the  poet  is  to  be  pointed  out 
who  more  deeply  than  any  other  has  caught  the 
tone  of  the  Court  in  things  ethical,  —  I  will  not 
say  in  those  sesthetical,  for  in  those,  too,  the  Court 
has  a  fashion  of  its  own  which  it  is  a  merit  to  copy, 
—  that  poet  is  John  Greenleaf  Whittier.  Germany 
thinks  he  has  the  deepest  heart  among  American 
singers,  and  compares  his  religious  lyrics  to  Luther's. 
It  was  once  my  fortune  to  hear  Whittier  say,  "  How 
uncouth  much  of  my  literary  work  is,  compared  with 
that  of  the  great  poet  of  the  Charles !  I  have  never 
been  able   to   satisfy  myself  in   art.     It  was   often 


MAUDSLEY   ON   HEKEDITAEY   DESCENT.  33 

necessary  for  me  to  write  hastily  to  meet  public 
events."  Most  touching  is  it  to  hear  a  soul  all  naph- 
tha and  fire  berate  itself  for  aesthetic  deficiencies. 
We  shall  pardon  any  poet  much  in  the  rhythms  of 
his  verse  if  the  rhythms  of  his  heart  are  in  perfect 
accord  with  those  of  the  great  melodies  of  the  Court. 
He  who  speaks  before  the  Throne  is  adequately  ap- 
proved, if  the  King  crowns  him.     [Applause.] 

American  and  all  other  literature  will  undoubtedly 
take  coloring  from  science  of  many  kinds.  It  is  not 
improper  for  us  to  remind  ourselves  that  some  of  our 
leaders  of  research  in  its  merely  physical  departments 
are  urging  us  to  make  more  and  more  of  the  revela- 
tions of  the  microscope  and  scalpel  when  we  open 
our  mouths  to  sing.  Tyndall  has  had  an  aspiration, 
perhaps  the  deepest  in  his  life  outside  of  his  career 
as  a  physicist,  to  be  the  prose-poet  of  nature.  "  The 
position  of  science,"  he  says,  "is  already  assured, 
but  I  think  the  poet  also  will  have  a  great  part  to 
play  in  the  future  of  the  world.  To  him  it  is  given, 
for  a  long  time  to  come,  to  fill  those  shores  which  the 
recession  of  the  theologic  tide  has  left  exposed;  to 
him,  when  he  rightly  understands  his  mission,  and 
does  not  flinch  from  the  tonic  discipline  which  it 
assuredly  demands,  we  have  a  right  to  look  for  that 
heightening  and  brightening  of  life  which  so  many 
of  us  need.  lie  ought  to  be  the  interpreter  of  that 
Power  which  as  Jehovah,  Jove,  or  Lord,  has  hitherto 
filled  and  strengthened  the  human  heart."  (Frag* 
mcttts  of  Sr.imry ,  p.  100.)  What  if  the  scientific  tide 
itself  is  a  theologic  one?  What  if  every  scientific 
fact  has  a  religious  side? 


34  HEREDITY. 

When  we  have  poetry  which  can  fly  with  all  the 
constellations  of  the  sky  of  culture,  and  utter  to 
the  music  which  the  morning  stars  sang  together  the 
deepest  truths  of  physical  and  ethical  science,  we 
shall  no  longer  have  national  poems  merely.  God 
will  give  them  a  great  future  yet,  no  doubt.  But  the 
supreme  poetry  of  time  to  come  is  not  to  be  national, 
but  international.  We  are  to  have  harps  struck,  I 
hope,  that  will  rise  into  the  region  of  universal  laws 
in  things  ethical  and  physical,  and  proclaim  what  all 
men  will  be  glad  to  transmute  into  life,  not  only  on 
the  Andes  and  the  Rocky  Mountains,  but  at  the  feet 
of  the  Himalayas,  and  under  the  shadows  of  the  hills 
of  China. 

It  is  the  will  of  God,  apparently,  that  men  should 
all  have  fair  chances.  The  poet  of  fair  chances  is 
the  poet  of  the  future.  Wherever  a  human  heart 
beats,  there  the  chords  of  American  literature  are 
likely  to  be  listened  to,  provided  they  are  struck 
according  to  the  new  key-note  of  our  own  demo- 
cratic heart.  There  is  much  more  ground  for  hope 
that  American  poetry  may  obtain  a  cosmopolitan 
hearing  than  that  any  other  poetry  on  the  globe 
will  do  so.  The  drift  of  history  for  one  hundred 
years  has  been  toward  freedom  politically.  More 
and  more,  as  time  unrolls,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
Throne  and  the  Court  in  all  their  fashions  are  to 
be  reverenced  in  the  spirit  of  theocratic  equality 
among  men.  The  poets  of  loyalty  to  all  the  fash- 
ions of  the  Court  are  those  who  will  be  crowned  by 
the  Court. 


MAUDSLEY   ON   HEREDITARY   DESCENT.  35 

The  forests  grow  out  of  the  air  much  more  than 
from  the  soil.     Spiritual  atmospheres,  and  not  our 
external   literary  fashions,  build  poems.     When  we 
see  in  the  short  turf  of  the  upland  pastures  the  fil- 
tering threads  of  rain-water  in  the  summer  shower, 
we  know  that  they  come  out  of  the  sky,  and  that 
they  nourish  the  roots  of  the  mighty  pines.     So  with 
the   poetic   forests  that   lift  their  sable,  resounding 
spires  of  evergreen  into  the  heavens,  and  cast  their 
brown  sheddings  upon  the  scented  gloom  of  sacred 
study  and  emotion  beneath  them.     They  are  the  chil- 
dren of  the  air.     Great  poetry  has  always  been  the 
offspring   of    deep   ethical   convictions.     The    mood 
which  produces  poetry  of  permanent  power  has  thus 
far  in  history  been  closely  connected  with  the  reli- 
gious spirit.     Natural  scenery  is  not  the  important 
matter  for  poets,  but  the  scenery  of  high  belief  is. 
It  America  is  to  be  a  Sahara,  if  a  sirocco  of  doubt 
is  to  wither  her  olives,  if  we   are   really  to   be    so 
frightened  when  sectarists  sneer  at  illiberality,  as  to 
fear  to  call  God,  God,  and  to  say  that  it  is  wrong  to 
steal,  then  there  will  be  no  pine-forests,  however  per- 
fect the  soil.     It  is  the  air,  it  is  empyrean  thought,  it 
is  emotions  rained  out  of  the  azure,  which  nourish 
the   deep  heart  of   aesthetics.     More  and  more  our 
American  civilization  will  need  to  build  itself  out  of 
the  rains  and  dews,  and  therefore  more    and   more 
out  of  its  ethical,  scientific  thought,  if  the  harp  of 
America  is  to  be  heard  around  the  world.     Anew 
Muse  is  set  before -the  ages.     The  Court  has  many 
quite  settled  standards,  ethical,  aesthetic,  social ;  and 


36  HEREDITY. 

only  lie  who  speaks  in  the  tones  of  the  Court  can  be 
heard  far  and  long. 

I  sing  to  her  who  sits  in  white, 
The  brightest  of  earth's  latest  light ; 
Her  throne  an  entire  jasper  stone 
Where  earth  and  heaven  meet  in  one ; 

End  of  the  future's  vistas  vast, 
Best  birth  of  ages,  —  best  and  last, 
In  knowledge  ripe,  in  virtue  whole  ; 
Ideal  of  perfected  soul. 

Far  sits  her  form  now,  — ages  far, 
Her  holy  face  seems  yet  a  star; 
But,  as  the  ages  to  her  run, 
The  star  enlargeth  to  a  sun. 

She  beckons  me,  and  I  am  awed ; 
She  is  my  Muse  ;  she  is  like  God. 
Her  look  doth  Time  with  God  infuse 
God,  God,  God  is  the  only  Muse. 

[Applause.] 

THE  LECTURE. 

If  chemical  combinations  account  for  living  tis- 
sues, what  accounts  for  the  chemical  combinations? 
[Applause.] 

Let  science  never  cease  to  make  petitioning  signals 
at  all  doors  where  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  puts  up 
bells  and  knockers.  To  him  that  knocketh  in  the 
name  of  that  law,  it  shall  be  opened.  Again  and 
again  we  are  told  by  materialistic  science,  that  some 
doors  are  not  to  be  approached ;  that  some  laws  are 
incomprehensible  ;   that  it  is  absolutely  beyond  the 


MAUDSLEY   ON   HEREDITARY   DESCENT.  87 

capacity  of  the  human  mind  to  understand  the  cause 
of  certain  changes  which  result  from  the  action  of 
bioplasmic  matter  or  germinal  points.  Adhere  un- 
relentingly to  clear  ideas.  If  chemical  combinations 
cause  the  formation  of  living  tissues,  it  is  very  sure 
that  something  has  caused  the  chemical  combina- 
lions.  Have  they  caused  themselves  ?  Face  to  face 
with  the  facts  of  biology,  dare  you  adopt  the  dicer's 
theory  of  the  universe  ? 

Life  or  mechanism  —  which?  is  the  question  in 
debate  concerning  living  tissues.  We  have  many 
specious,  glittering  pleas  made  in  support  of  the 
mechanical  theory  of  life.  In  reply,  the  opponents 
of  materialism  bring  into  court  the  living  tissues 
themselves.  They  exhibit  the  results  of  the  latest 
exact  research  into  the  difference  between  the  living 
and  the  lifeless  forms  of  matter.  They  spread  out 
in  biological  charts  the  resplendent  certainties  which 
illustrate  the  laws  of  the  growth  of  all  living  things 
[referring  to  charts  on  the  platform]. 

Aristotle  defined  life  as  "  the  cause  of  form  in  or- 
ganisms." Herbert  Spencer  defines  it  as  "  the  defi- 
nite coinbination  of  heterogeneous  changes,  both 
simultaneous  and  successive,  in  correspondence  with 
external  co-existences  and  sequences."  I  prefer  Aris- 
totle's definition.  It  has  been  a  part  of  the  audacity 
of  this  platform,  to  define  life  in  connection  with 
physical  organisms,  as  the  power  which  co-ordinates  the 
movements  of  germinal  matter.  Permit  me  to  recur 
to  that  definition  in  replying  to  Maudsley's  pretence, 
and  that  of  Spencer,  and  of  the  whole  school  of  ma- 


38  HEREDITY. 

terialistic,  as  distinguished  from  theistic,  evolution- 
ists, —  namely,  that  axioms,  intuitions,  necessary  be- 
liefs, self-evident  truths,  are  themselves  only  the 
result  of  our  habits ;  an  outcome  of  inheritance 
through  physiological  causes,  brought  into  activity 
as  the  race  and  its  animal  progenitors  have  been,  age 
after  age,  boxed  about  by  their  environment  from 
the  jelly-speck  up. 

There  has  been  one  conscience  in  this  world  such 
that  the  ages  have  felt  that  its  laws  reveal  the 
very  nature  of  things.  "  Development,"  as  Newman 
Smyth  remarks,  "  must  account  not  only  for  man,  but 
for  the  Son  of  man."  The  conscience,  which  was 
the  author  of  Christianity,  must  have  been  the  result 
of  development,  if  materialistic  theories  are  correct. 

The  moral  sense,  we  are  told,  is  only  the  sequel  of 
an  accumulation  of  nerve-tracks  in  the  brain.  We 
cannot  say  that  our  fundamental  beliefs  would  not 
be  different  if  our  environment  had  been  so.  The 
central  propositions,  or  necessary  beliefs,  on  which 
all  scientific  discussion  has  relied  up  to  our  da}^,  are 
now  themselves  to  be  brought  into  question  in  the 
name  of  hereditary  descent.  Stuart  Mi|l  used  to 
affirm  that  there  may  be  worlds  in  which  two  and 
two  do  not  make  four.  Even  the  mathematical  axi- 
oms he  would  explain  as  the  result  of  operations  of 
the  laws  of  association.  Herbert  Spencer,  however, 
thinks  it  very  wild  to  account  for  our  necessary 
beliefs  by  indi  /idual  experience  merely.  It  is  now 
pretty  general*/  conceded,  that  what  we  take  in  from 
our  finger-tips  and  other  senses  will  not,  by  the  laws 


MAUDSLEY   ON   HEREDITARY  DESCENT.  39 

of  association  merety,  account  for  our  primary  be- 
liefs in  self-evident  truths,  and  especially  not  for  our 
convictions  that  certain  propositions  hold  good  be- 
yond the  range  of  experience.  It  is  asserted,  how- 
ever, that,  if  our  individual  experience  will  not  thus 
account  for  our  necessary  beliefs,  that  of  our  ances- 
tors will.  We  have  not  had  a  trial  long  enough  to 
account  for  our  certainty  that  every  change  must 
have  a  cause,  and  that  two  straight  lines  cannot 
enclose  a  space ;  but  our  race  has  had  a  trial  suffi- 
ciently long  for  that  purpose.  We  are  giving  up, 
in  the  conflict  with  the  materialistic  and  with  the 
associational  school  in  philosoplry,  any  very  elaborate 
attacks  upon  the  theory  that  all  our  necessary  beliefs 
come  from  individual  experience.  Faint  and  few 
are  the  soldiers  that  stand  in  the  line  of  the  defence 
of  that  proposition  at  the  present  day.  But  man}r, 
and  bold,  and  exceedingly  hopeful  are  those  who 
would  account  for  our  necessary  beliefs  by  hereditary 
descent,  that  is,  by  the  experience  of  the  race,  not 
only  since  we  became  men,  but  during  all  that  time 
when  we  were  being  lifted  by  the  law  of  develop- 
ment from  inorganic  matter. 

Allow  me  to  give  a  general  reply  to  this  precious 
theory  that  our  necessary  beliefs  are  derived  from  the 
experience  of  our  ancestors,  and  then  to  descend  little 
by  little  into  detail.  If  all  my  necessary  beliefs, 
intuitions,  first  principles,  come  from  experience, 
either  of  myself  or  of  my  race,  then  my  convic- 
tions ought  not  to  outrun  the  range  of  the  expe- 
rience either  of  myself  or  of  my  race.     You  cannot 


40  HEREDITY. 

logically  put  more  into  your  conclusions  than  you 
have  in  your  premises ;  but  it  is  beyond  all  contro- 
versy that  the  experience  of  myself  and  of  the  race 
has  been  finite.  A  little  while  ago  there  was  no  life 
on  the  planet.  That  principle  of  life  which  has  cul- 
minated in  me  has  not  had  experience  beyond  the 
North  Star.  But  we  have  some  convictions  that 
have  a  far  wider  range  than  the  circuit  of  the  polar 
light.  Stuart  Mill  does  not  deny  that  we  are  bound 
to  believe,  or  incited  by  our  organism  to  have  confi- 
dence, that  every  change  must  have  a  cause  beyond 
the  North  Star,  as  well  as  on  the  earth.  We  feel 
very  sure  that  two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a 
space  in  the  sun  any  more  than  they  can  on  Beacon 
Hill.  We  have  entire  confidence  that  sin  in  the 
Pleiades,  just  as  here,  can  be  the  quality  of  only 
voluntary  action.  We  believe  that  necessary  truths, 
self-evident  propositions,  hold  good  for  all  time  and 
all  space.  With  no  sense  that  we  are  doing  any 
thing  audacious,  we  sweep  self-evident  truths  through 
the  whole  extent  of  the  infinities  and  the  eternities, 
and  feel  as  sure  of  their  truth  beyond  the  range  of 
our  experience  as  we  are  inside  the  range. 

Thus  far  there  is  no  dispute.  All  that  the  materi- 
alistic school  sa}*s  in  reply  is,  that  convictions  which 
outrun  experience  are  illusions.  Goethe  said,  and  it 
is  the  keenest  speech  Mephistophelcs  ever  made, 
"Whom  God  deceives  is  well  deceived."  It  is  as- 
sumed that  our  convictions,  which  outrun  experience, 
are  the  result  of  illusions,  represent  no  outward  re- 
ality, might  have  been  different  had  our  environment 


MAUDSLEY   ON   HEREDITARY   DESCENT.  41 

been  different ;  and  thus  we  are  thrown  into  unrest 
as  to  self-evident  truth  itself.  If  this  unrest  is  justi- 
fiable, then  what  we  thought  to  be  adamant  under 
our  feet,  is  rocking  on  a  deck  afloat.  We  are  not 
sure  that  every  change  must  have  a  cause.  It  is 
assumed  by  some,  that  all  we  can  assert  is  that  every 
change  has  a  cause,  —  not  that  it  must  have.  By 
others  it  is  supposed  simply  that  every  change  with- 
in our  field  of  vision  has  an  antecedent  which  we 
cail  a  cause ;  but  we  are  not  allowed  by  that  school 
to  assert  that  there  is  any  efficient  connection  be- 
tween what  is  called  the  cause  and  the  effect. 

It  is  our  duty  to  ourselves  to  test  these  unnatural 
theories  by  clear  ideas.  We  are  not  bound  in  this 
assembly  to  any  school  in  philosophy.  We  have  here 
but  one  fundamental  tenet :  the  clear  first,  the  clear 
midst,  the  clear  last,  and,  in  the  clear,  the  true.  We 
care  not  what  school  goes  up  or  down :  we  care  for 
clear  ideas.  [Applause.]  Let  us  study  some  part 
of  the  uniform  experience  of  the  race,  and  see 
whether  it  has  taught  us  any  proposition  which  we 
cannot  reverse  in  imagination.  I  suppose  the  sun 
has  always  risen  in  the  east.  My  ancestors  probably 
never  saw  it  rise  in  the  west ;  and  by  my  ancestors  I 
mean  the  polyps.  If  the  sun  ever  has  risen  in  the 
west,  no  record  of  the  fact  has  been  preserved ;  the 
colossal  circumstance  has  made  no  impression  on 
human  history.  We  may,  I  think,  fairly  suppose  that 
the  sun  has  always  risen  in  the  east.  There  has  been 
a  uniform  experience  of  the  race,  from  the  first,  of 
Bun-iisings   and   star-risings  in  that  quarter  of  the 


42  HEREDITY. 

heavens.  Well,  it  turns  out  that  it  is  very  natural 
for  us  to  look  for  the  sun  in  the  east,  but  is  it  impos- 
ble  for  us  to  imagine  that  the  sun  might  rise  in  the 
west?  Not  at  all.  It  is  perfectly  possible  for  me  to 
imagine  that  to-morrow  moruing  the  orb  of  day  might 
come  up  from  behind  the  pines  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains instead  of  from  beneath  the  watery  shoulder  of 
the  planet  visible  from  this  Massachusetts  coast.  I 
can  imagine  such  a  geological  convulsion  as  might 
reverse  the  motion  of  the  earth,  and  give  us  a  new 
order  of  celestial  phenomena,  in  spite  of  the  perfect 
uniformity  of  our  experience  as  a  race  in  regard  to 
these  celestial  movements. 

But,  now,  can  I  imagine  it  possible  that  two  straight 
lines  can  enclose  a  space  ?  Not  at  all.  The  moment 
I  understand  what  two  straight  lines  mean,  I  see  that 
they  cannot  enclose  a  space.  It  is  impossible  even  to 
imagine  the  annihilation  of  space  or  time,  or  that 
things  that  are  equal  to  the  same  thing  arc  not  equal 
to  each  other,  or  that  a  whole  is  less  than  a  part. 
But  my  race  has  had  as  uniform  an  experience  as  to 
the  sun  rising  in  the  east  as  it  has  had  concerning 
these  axiomatic  propositions.  It  is  possible,  however, 
to  imagine  that  the  sun  might  rise  in  the  west,  and 
not  possible  to  imagine  that  a  part  is  as  great  as  a 
whole.  There  is  an  inconceivability  in  regard  to  the 
latter  proposition  which  does  not  exist  in  regard  to 
the  other.  My  ancestors  have  had  no  greater  num- 
ber of  instances  of  experience  of  the  whole  being 
greater  than  a  part  than  they  have  had  instances  of 
experience  as  to  the  heavenly  bodies  rising  in  the 


MATTDSLEY   ON   HEREDITARY   DESCENT.  43 

east.  Four  thousand  heavenly  bodies,  visible  to  the 
naked  eye,  rise  in  the  east  every  day.  Experience 
has  been  just  as  uniform  about  the  sunrise  as  it  has 
been  about  any  mathematical  axioms ;  but  you  can,  in 
thought,  reverse  the  motion  of  the  sun,  and  you  cannot 
reverse,  even  in  thought,  a  mathematical  axiom.  (See 
Boston  Monday  Lectures  on  Transcendentalism,  pp. 
12-25.)  Those  are  self-evident  truths  of  which  the 
opposites  are  not  conceivable.  They  reach  beyond 
all  experience ;  for  we  feel  sure  that  they  are  true 
beyond  the  North  Star  and  in  all  the  constellations. 
They  were  true  in  all  past  time,  and  will  be  in  all 
time  to  come.  Now,  if  the  uniform  experience  of 
ourselves  and  ancestors  is  the  origin  of  both  these 
classes  of  convictions  in  our  minds,  why  is  there  such 
a  difference  in  the  way  the  mind  acts  when  we  bring 
it  face  to  face  with  the  conceivable  and  the  incon- 
ceivable as  to  each  class  ?  There  are  propositions  of 
which  the  opposite  is  utterly  inconceivable.  They 
reach  beyond  the  range  of  experience  infinitely  in 
time  and  in  space.  Experience  cannot  account  for 
what  goes  beyond  experience.  The  universal,  self-evi- 
dent truths  of  the  intellect  and  conscience,  therefore, 
cannot  be  deduced  logically  from  the  finite  experiences 
either  of  the  individual  or  of  his  ancestors.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

To  descend  now  to  detail,  let  me  emphasize  a 
few  of  the  differences  between  living  and  lifeless 
matter :  — 

1.  Living  beings  retain  their  identity  in  spite  of 
the  constant  change  in  the  particles  that  compose 


44  HEREDITY. 

their  organisms.  InorganiQ  masses  lose  their  identity 
with  the  change  of  their  particles. 

Plymouth  Rock  is  composed  of  atoms  of  granite ; 
and  if  you  wash  away  all  these  atoms,  and  little  by 
little  substitute  others  for  them,  when  you  have 
effected  a  change  of  physical  identity,  Plymouth 
Rock  is  no  longer  Plymouth  Rock.  But  here  is 
Webster,  who  stands  on  Plymouth  Rock  to  make  an 
oration  ;  and  there  is  not  in  his  brain,  or  in  any  part 
of  his  living  tissues,  a  single  atom  that  was  there 
seven  years  previously,  or  perhaps  not  a  single  one 
that  was  there  twenty  months  ago.  But  Webster  is 
Webster  in  spite  of  the  frequent  loss  of  his  physical 
identity.  Your  living  being  retains  its  identity  in 
spite  of  the  change  of  its  particles ;  your  dead  mat- 
ter does  not ;  and  here  is  one  hint  of  the  breadth  of 
the  colossal  chasm  between  living  and  lifeless  forms 
of  matter.     [Applause.] 

2.  In  living  matter  the  component  atoms  are  in  a 
state  of  unstable  equilibrium,  which  chemical  and 
physical  forces  are  constantly  endeavoring  to  overset. 
In  lifeless  matter  these  forces  reduce  the  atoms  to  a 
condition  of  stable  equilibrium. 

The  tissues  of  all  living  things,  when  exposed  to 
chemical  forces  alone,  tend  to  revert  to  the  condi- 
tion of  inorganic  matter.  When  life  departs  from 
the  body,  chemical  laws  reduce  the  organism  to 
dust.  This  shows  how  unstable  is  the  combination 
produced  by  the  bioplasts,  and  how  inadequate  chem- 
ical forces  are  to  account  for  the  power  which  in  life 
prevents  that  equilibrium  from  being  overset.     (See 


MAUDSLEY  ON   HEREDITARY  DESCENT.  45 

Bowne,  Professor,  The  Philosojyhy  of  Herbert  Spencer, 
pp.  95-106.) 

3.  Organic  matter  grows ;  inorganic  matter  does 
not.  The  former  increases  by  selective  assimilation, 
the  latter  by  accretion.  What  is  added  to  the  one 
gains  no  new  properties :  what  is  added  to  the  other 
takes  on  new  powers. 

When  I  roll  my  snowball  in  the  snow,  what  is 
added  is  snow  after  it  is  added.  When  Plymouth 
Rock  is  rolled  in  the  sand,  the  particles  which  are 
taken  up  acquire  no  new  properties.  But,  when 
new  matter  is  added  to  living  tissues,  it  takes  on 
new  properties.  It  is  as  different  from  the  old  as 
life  is  from  death.  Gases,  food  of  various  kinds,  are 
absorbed  by  the  bioplasts,  and  changed  into  germinal 
matter  which  has  a  power  of  weaving  all  the  tissues 
of  the  body.  Such  new  properties  are  given  it,  that 
we  have  in  one  place  a  nerve,  in  another  a  muscle,  in 
another  a  tendon,  in  another  a  cellular  integument. 
This  action  is  altogether  different  from  that  of  inor- 
ganic matter,  and  implies  a  power  higher  than  chemi- 
cal, and  co-ordinating  all  these  activities. 

4.  Established  science  teaches  that  the  molecular 
atoms  are  always  the  same.  They  change  their  com- 
binations, but  not  their  individual  qualities. 

Clerk  Maxwell  has  written  a  famous  essay  on 
molecular  atoms ;  there  has  been  elaborate  investi- 
gation of  this  topic  by  many  physicists,  and  it  is 
now  generally  conceded  that  the  ultimate  particles 
of  matter  never  change  their  shape  or  their  proper- 
ties.    It  follows  that  you  cannot  draw  life  out  of 


46  HEEEDITY. 

these  molecular  atoms  at   the   end   of  any  process 
tinless  you  put  it  in  at  the  beginning. 

5.  Here  are  the  atoms ;  they  do  not  change  their 
qualities,  but  only  their  combinations.  Very  well, 
then :  if  you  will  allow  me  to  use  an  algebraical 
symbol,  we  know  that  in  the  combination  of  atoms 
a  is  always  a,  and  not  a  plus  b  or  a  minus  b.  What- 
ever combination  a  molecular  atom  enters  into,  it  is 
always  itself,  and  not  itself  plus  something  or  minus 
something.  Unless  life  is  involved  in  the  molecular 
atoms  of  inert  matter,  you  will  not  evolve  it  out 
of  their  combination.  Spencer  admits  this,  and  so 
brings  forward  the  theory,  in  his  biology,  of  "  com- 
pound molecular  units,"  whatever  that  may  mean. 
Compound  units!  "E  pluribus  unum"  indeed  !  A 
man  cannot  be  in  the  American  Union  if  he  is  in 
none  of  its  States. 

6.  Living  tissues  are  co-ordinated  according  to 
definite  plans. 

7.  As  every  change  must  have  an  adequate  cause, 
we  are  compelled  to  infer  the  existence  of  a  co-ordi- 
nating force  behind  the  action  of  the  bioplasts  in 
each  organism. 

8.  That  force  is  the  cause  of  form  in  organisms. 

9.  It  has  as  many  types  as  there  are  types  of  or- 
ganisms, vegetable  and  animal. 

10.  "We  do  not  find  in  chemistry  the  co-ordinating 
power  which  is  the  cause  of  form  in  organisms.  But 
incontrovertibly  there  is  a  power  which  co-ordinates 
the  action  of  these  germinal  points,  for  they  are 
co-ordinated. 


MATTDSLEY  ON  HEREDITARY  DESCENT.  47 

11.  As  the  co-ordinating  power  which  is  the  cause 
of  form  in  organisms  cannot  be  found  in  matter,  it 
must  be  looked  for  outside  of  matter.  Like  any 
other  cause,  its  nature  must  be  judged  of  from  its 
effects. 

Any  man  who  has  stood  face  to  face  with  the  re- 
sults of  microscopical  research  in  the  last  twenty 
years  will,  I  think,  be  very  slow  to  adopt  any  other 
than  Aristotle's  definition  of  life.  Perfectly  parallel 
with  that  definition  is  the  one  given  here. 

12.  Life  is  the  immaterial  co-ordinating  power  be- 
hind the  movements  of  germinal  matter. 

That  definition  having  been  defended  by  me  at 
great  length  previously,  I  shall  now  use  our  former 
conclusions.  From  the  point  of  view  reached  in  thir- 
teen lectures  on  Biology  (see  vol.  i.  of  the  Boston 
Monday  Lectures),  I  must  begin  —  and  I  can  only 
begin  to-day  —  a  reply  to  Maudsley. 

1.  Germinal  matter,  or  bioplasm,  increases  in  quan- 
tity as  living  tissues  grow.  Once  every  living  thing 
was  but  a  single  naked  mass  of  bioplasm. 

2.  With  the  increase  of  quantity  there  is  an  in- 
crease of  the  force  in  the  germinal  matter. 

Your  naked,  throbbing  mass  of  bioplasm  takes  on 
a  wall,  and  divides  and  subdivides,  and  weaves  the 
walls  of  its  cells  into  tendon  and  nerve  and  muscle, 
and  coils  these  around  each  other,  according  to  a 
predetermined  plan.  One-fifth  of  the  bulk  of  the 
mature  organism  is  made  up  of  germinal  matter. 
One  bioplast?  develops  into  many. 

3.  Tliis  increase  is  derived  from  the  assimilation 
of  inorganic  matter. 


48  HEREDITY. 

The  individual  cell  takes  in  nutrient  matter  from 
without,  transforms  it  into  living  matter,  and  throws 
it  off  as  formed  matter.  You  remember  that  there 
are  but  three  kinds  of  matter  in  living  tissues, — 
nutrient'  matter,  living  matter,  and  formed  matter. 
The  inorganic  is  changed  into  the  germinal ;  the  ger- 
minal throws  off  the  formed ;  and,  as  your  bioplast 
divides  and  subdivides,  no  doubt  the  matter  which 
it  weaves  into  these  various  structures  is  derived 
from  the  inorganic  world. 

4.  Maudsley  asks  how  we  know  that  the  movements 
of  germinal  matter,  which  are  sustained  by  inorganic 
matter,  did  not  originate  in  inorganic  matter. 

He  says,  "  Admitting  that  vital  transforming  mat- 
ter is  at  first  derived  from  vital  structure,  it  is  evident 
that  the  external  force  and  matter  transformed  does, 
in  turn,  become  transforming  force  —  that  is,  vital. 
And,  if  that  takes  place  after  the  vital  process  has  once 
commenced,  is  it,  it  may  be  asked,  extravagant  to  sup- 
pose that  a  similar  transformation  might  at  some  period 
have  commenced  the  process,  and  may  ever  be  doing  so  ? 
The  fact  that  in  growth  and  development,  life  is  con- 
tinually increasing  from  a  transformation  of  physical 
and  chemical  forces  is,  after  all,  in  favor  of  the  pre- 
sumption that  it  may  at  first  have  so  originated. 
And  the  advocate  of  this  view  may  turn  upon  his 
opponent,  and  demand  of  him  how  he,  with  a  due 
regard  to  the  axiom  that  force  is  not  self-generatory, 
and  to  the  fact  that  living  matter  does  increase  from 
the  size  of  a  little  cell  to  the  magnitude  of  a  human 
body,  accounts  for  the  continual  production  of  trans- 


MAUDSLEY   ON   HEREDITARY   DESCENT.  49 

forming  power?  A  definite  quantity  only  could  have 
been  derived  from  the  mother  structure,  and  that 
must  have  been  exhausted  at  an  early  period  of 
growth.  The  obvious  refuge  of  the  vitalist  is  to  the 
facts  that  it  is  impossible  now  to  evolve  life  arti- 
ficially out  of  any  combination  of  physical  and  chemi- 
cal forces,  and  that  such  a  transformation  is  never 
witnessed  save  under  the  conditions  of  vitality." 
{Body  and  Mind,  English  edition,  p.  169.) 

Probably  Maudsley's  is  the  acutest  question  that 
English  materialism  has  ever  asked.  For  one,  I 
agree  most  cordially  with  Professor  Bowne  of  Bos- 
ton University,  in  his  Avork  on  "  The  Philosophy  of 
Herbert  Spencer,"  when  he  says  (p.  104)  that  "  this 
is  the  best  thing  the  correlationists  have  said  yet, 
and  it  is  the  best  that  can  be  said."  Wishing  the 
whole  force  of  this  argument  to  be  appreciated,  I 
have  cited  Maudsley  at  length,  and  am  anxious  that 
he  should  be  read,  not  only  in  his  new  edition  of  his 
"  Physiology  of  Mind,"  1877,  but  in  his  essays  on 
"  Body  and  Mind,"  1873.  The  latter  work  contains  a 
suggestive  paper  on  "  Conscience  and  Organization." 

Maudsley  is  not  to  be  disputed  when  he  says  that 
the  germinal  points  absorb  inorganic  matter,  and  that 
they  transform  it  into  other  bioplasts  and  the  various 
tissues.  As  their  power  evidently  grows  by  acqui- 
sition of  power  from  inorganic  matter,  who  knows 
but  that  it  commenced  so  ?  That  is,  who  knows  but 
that  spontaneous  generation  may  be  a  fact,  or  that 
there  is  any  co-ordinating  power  behind  these  rhyth- 
mically moving  co-ordinated  germinal  points  ?     That 


50  HEEEDITY. 

is  the  objection ;  and  that,  I  suppose,  is  the  Malakoff 
of  English  materialism. 

5.  My  reply  is  that  when  I  define  life  strictly  as 
the  co-ordinating  power  governing  the  movements 
of  germinal  matter,  I  do  not  know  that  this  power 
is  increased  by  the  multiplication  of  the  bioplasts. 
The  power  of  co-ordination  is  the  subtlest  power  in  life  ; 
and  this  power  resides  in  the  original  germ;  and  we 
do  not  know  that  it  is  increased  by  the  growth  of  the 
living  subject. 

I  admit  that  chemical  forces  are  drawn  into  the 
labyrinth  of  activity  in  the  living  tissues,  but  not  that 
the  co-ordinating  power  behind  the  bioplasts  is  in 
creased.  Very  evidently  that  power  is  not  changed, 
for  the  plan  of  an  organism  is  the  same  from  first  to 
last,  through  its  whole  growth. 

We  do  not  know  that  the  weaver  is  any  more 
skilful  when  the  web  is  half  woven  than  when  he  has 
merely  set  the  web,  and  first  begins  to  throw  the 
shuttle. 

There  is  an  increase  in  the  amount  of  power  mani- 
fested by  the  organism ;  but  there  is  no  increase  in 
the  co-ordinating  power,  which  is  what  materialism 
never  accounts  for. 

The  weaver  has  just  as  much  co-ordinating  power 
when  the  web  is  arranged  for  the  first  stroke  of  the 
shuttle  as  he  has  after  it  is  woven,  and  the  finished 
product  is  held  up  in  its  glory  before  admiring  eyes. 
The  co-ordinating  power  is  what  I  call  life ;  and  in 
the  germ  of  your  eagle,  your  man,  your  lion,  your 
Bwallow,  that   co-ordinating  power  has  a  law  such 


MAUDSLEY   ON   HEREDITARY   DESCENT.  51 

that  there  cannot  come  out  of  the  germ  of  the  lion 
a  swallow,  nor  out  of  the  germ  of  the  swallow  a  lion. 
Every  thing  under  the  law  of  hereditary  descent 
breeds  true  to  its  kind.  I  do  not  see  that  there  is 
the  slightest  evidence  that  this  co-ordinating  power 
is  increased.  The  reply  to  Maudsley  is,  therefore, 
contained  in  that  definition  of  life  upon  which  I 
have  just  insisted.  Give  me,  as  a  statement  of  what 
life  means,  this  phrase,  the  co-ordinating  power  which 
directs  the  movements  of  germinal  matter,  and  I  will 
defy  Maudsley  to  prove  that  the  co-ordinating  power 
is  increased  by  the  growth  of  organisms  ;  for  just  as 
much  of  it  is  needed  in  these  first  strokes  as  in  the 
last,  and  one  would  think  a  good  deal  more.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Very  great  conclusions  follow  from  defining  life  as 
the  co-ordinating  power  directing  the  movements  oi 
germinal  matter :  — 

6.  The  first  law  of  hereditary  descent  is,  that  every 
living  thing  reproduces  its  own  kind,  and  no  other 
kind. 

7.  The  co-ordinating  power  which  we  call  life  lies 
behind  this  law  of  hereditary  descent. 

.  8.  A  cause  must  precede  its  effect. 

9.  The  co-ordinating  power  which  is  the  cause  of 
form  in  organisms  must  exist  before  the  organization 
which  it  causes. 

Even  Iliickel  and  Huxley  hold  that  life  is  the  cause 
of  organization,  and  not  organization  of  life. 

10.  Transmitted  co-ordinating  power,  therefore, 
does  not  depend  on  a  physical  environment  for  its 


52  HEREDITY. 

existence  or  its  habits  of  action,  by  which  it  always 
breeds  true  to  its  kind. 

11.  The  transmitted  co-ordinating  power  is,  there 
fore,  a  capacity  not  dependent  on  experience. 

12.  But  this  transmitted  original  co-ordinating 
power  in  man  contains  the  plan  of  his  soul  as  well 
as  of  his  body. 

13.  That  plan  has  peculiarities  which  in  man  bring 
into  existence  the  intuitions  and  self-evident  truths, 
or  what  are  called  innate  or  connate  ideas. 

14.  The  self-evident  truths,  the  intuitions,  the  laws 
of  the  necessary  beliefs,  including  those  of  conscience, 
are,  therefore,  not  the  result  of  experience,  but  origi- 
nal parts  of  the  transmitted  co-ordinating  power  in 
man,  and  independent  of  the  co-ordinated  organism. 
[Applause.] 


in. 


NECESSARY  BELIEFS  INHERENT  IN  THE  PLAN 
OF  THE  SOUL. 


THE   NINETY-THIRD   LECTURE   IN   THE   BOSTON 

MONDAY   LECTURESHIP,   DELIVERED   IN 

TREMONT    TEMPLE,   DEC.    24. 


Nihil   est   in   intellectu,    quod   non   fuerit  in   sensu,   nisi  ipse 

intellectus.  —  Leibnitz  :  Nouveaux  Essais. 


Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting-. 
The  soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  star, 

Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 

And  cometh  from  afar: 

Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 

And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 
Buf  trailing  clouds  of  glory,  do  we  come 

From  God,  who  is  our  home. 

Wokdswokth:   Ode  on  Immortality. 


TIL 


NECESSARY   BELIEFS    INHERENT   IN   THE 
PLAN   OF   THE   SOUL. 

PE ELUDE   ON   CURRENT   EVENTS. 

In  the  possible,  I  do  not  say  in  the  probable, 
future,  there  lies,  at  a  distance  of  not  more  than 
three  centuries,  an  alliance,  not  a  union,  of  Great 
Britain,  the  United  States,  Australia,  India,  belting 
the  globe,  and  possessed  of  power  to  strike  a  uni- 
versal peace  through  half  the  continents  and  all  the 
seas.  The  disbanding  of  large  standing  armies 
among  English-speaking  peoples  would  be  one 
majestic  end  attainable  by  this  majestic  means. 
Great  Britain  alone  now  virtually  rules  the  waves. 
Except  in  India,  an  alliance  of  the  English-speaking 
peoples  of  the  world  could  be  attacked  only  from 
the  sea.  But  the  fleets  of  an  American-Anglican 
commercial  league  might  easily  govern  the  oceans. 
Such  an  alliance  was  deliberately  proposed  not  long 
ago  in  a  speech  before  the  Union  League  Club  of 
New  York,  by  Mr.  Forster,  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  Mr.  Gladstone's  prospective  successor  as 


56  HEREDITY. 

leader  of  the  liberal  party  in  English  politics.  (See 
report  in  Tribune  of  Dec.  15,  1874.)  The  haughty 
and.  cautious  British  press  emphatically  praised  the 
scheme  as  practicable,  and  to  England  desirable. 
Even  so  conservative  a  paper  as  the  London  Spec- 
tator says  that  such  an  alliance  would,  for  geo- 
graphical reasons,  be  utterly  beyond  attack  from 
any  first-class  power,  unless  China  should  ever  be- 
come one ;  and  that,  except  in  India,  it  could  be 
attacked  only  by  fleets  which  eighty  millions  of  men, 
always  foremost  in  naval  warfare  or  maritime  enter- 
prise, could  with  no  great  or  exhausting  effort  brush 
away  from  the  seas.  It  would  be  open  to  such  a 
league,  without  dangerous  interventions,  to  secure 
permanent  peace  among  nearly  half  mankind.  Dream 
though  it  may  be,  this  possible  future  naturally  rises 
before  our  thoughts  in  the  jubilant  Christmas  season, 
the  first  occurrence  of  which  Milton  describes  in 
words  which,  God  grant,  may  yet  be  true  of  time  to 
come :  — 

"  No  war  or  battle's  sound 
Was  heard,  the  world  around  ; 
The  idle  spear  and  shield  were  high  uphung ; 
The  hooked  chariot  stood 
Unstained  by  hostile  blood  ; 
The  trumpet  spake  not  to  the  armed  throng ; 
And  kings  sat  still  with  awful  eye, 
As  if  they  surely  knew  their  sovereign  Lord  was  by." 

Hymn  to  the  Nativity. 

What  would  be  some  of  the  rules  of  such  an  alli- 
ance, Anglo-American  and  Australian,  if  the  nations 
should  ever  be  wise  enough  to  enter  upon  its  organ- 


NECESSARY   BELIEFS.  57 

ization  ?  Perhaps  they  would  first  agree  not  to  enter 
into  war  with  each  other  without  trying  arbitration 
as  a  remedy.  Already  a  precedent  has  been  set  at 
Geneva  in  a  famous  arbitration  trial,  such  that  it 
would  be  very  difficult  now  for  English-speaking 
nations  to  accept  war  with  each  other  without  trying 
arbitration  first  as  a  method  of  settlement.  At 
Geneva  was  spun  by  Clotho  a  thread  which  Lachesis 
twists,  and  Atropos  seems  unlikely  soon  to  sever. 

"  Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin ! 

Lachesis,  twist!  and  Atropos,  sever  1 
Strong  is  Death,  and  strong  is  Sin, 
But  only  God  endures  forever." 

Lowell. 

Would  free  trade  be  the  rule  as  to  commercial 
intercourse?  That  is  a  difficult  question,  and  one 
not  to  be  brought  up  earliest  in  the  formation  of  any 
Anglo-American  alliance.  But  perhaps,  after  decid- 
ing that  arbitration  is  to  be  tried  before  we  make 
war  with  each  other,  we  should  agree  that  arbitra- 
tion is  to  be  offered  to  every  nation  that  purposes 
to  make  war  on  us.  Our  example  in  favor  of  this 
measure  might  strike  peace  through  many  a  minor 
kingdom.  The  make-weight  of  the  political  in- 
fluence of  an  Anglo-Saxon  alliance,  thrown  into  the 
scale  of  bloody  war,  would  often  be  enough  to  bring 
contending  peoples  of  no  great  size  to  peace.  Per- 
haps uniform  standards  of  weight  and  measure  and 
money  would  be  adopted  throughout  such  a  league. 
Possibly  patent-laws  would  cover  the  whole  territory 
of  the  alliance  ;  perhaps  copyright  would.     Of  course 


58  HEEEDITY. 

international  law,  which  already  begins  to  be  codi- 
fied, would  advance  to  new  details  and  enlarged 
honor.  After  these  earlier  and  smaller  strands  should 
have  been  tied,  there  might  come  a  day  when  the 
question  would  be  raised,  whether  all  ports  of  this 
alliance  should  not  be  open  to  free  trade.  Having 
once  adopted  arbitration  as  an  international  law, 
shall  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  treat  each 
other  as  enemies  in  trade,  although  friends  in  poli- 
tics ?  There  is  much  to  be  said  against  free  trade ; 
but  probably  an  English-speaking  alliance  would  at 
last  drift  into  it.  What  inspiritment  would  come  to 
commerce  with  free  trade  among  all  English-speak- 
ing peoples  in  the  whole  world !  [Applause.] 
What  encouragement  would  come  to  all  friends  of 
peace  if  commerce  were  to  be  made  a  missionary  for 
peace,  not  only  in  England,  but  in  Australia,  and  in 
America  as  well !  If  the  Anglo-American  alliance 
of  the  possible  future  were  to  become,  in  the  inter- 
ests of  commerce,  a  missionary  of  peace  in  all  seas, 
it  surely  would  be  the  same  in  all  continents.  Our 
ocean  lines  of  transit  are  now  so  connected  with  the 
railways  and  telegraphs,  that  an  alliance  able  to 
manage  the  seas  would  also  need  to  assert  its 
power  over  many  large  lines  of  railway  transit ;  and 
so,  little  by  little,  commerce,  after  managing  the 
water,  would  manage  the  land  in  the  interest  of 
peace. 

How  much  power  would  there  be  behind  such  an 
alliance?  What  would  be  the  strength  of  its 
numbers  ?     We  have  in  Great  Britain  forty  millions 


NECESSARY  BELIEFS.  59 

of  people,  and  in  the  United  States  more  than  forty 
millions.  Here  in  Canada  and  British  America  are 
four  millions,  and  in  the  West  Indies  and  Guiana 
another  million  and  more.  Then  we  have  in  Austra- 
lasia two  and  a  half  millions  belonging  to  the  British 
Empire.  We  have  in  the  scattered  Eastern  posses- 
sions of  Great  Britain  more  than  three  millions  of 
people.  We  have  in  Africa  one  million  and  a  half 
who  are  ruled  by  Queen  Victoria,  and  in  India  two 
hundred  and  forty  millions  Of  whom  she  is  the  em- 
press. What,  now,  if  all  these  scattered  millions 
should  be  united?  we  should  have  about  three  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  millions  in  an  Anglo-American 
alliance,  or  very  nearly  a  quarter  of  the  population  of 
the  world.  At  another  centennial  of  our  county  and 
of  the  British  Empire,  more  than  a  quarter  would 
be  inside  this  possible  league.  The  Sandwich  Is- 
lands would  probably  join  such  an  alliance.  Would 
progressive  Japan  do  so?  Would  Egypt?  Would 
Greece  ? 

The  Pacific  would  be  to  an  alliance  of  all  Eng- 
lish-speaking peoples  only  what  the  Mediterranean 
was  to  the  Roman  Empire. 

Such  a  league  might  finally  adopt  the  supreme 
measure  of  defending  itself  as  a  unit  in  case  of  at- 
tack. That  would  be,  perhaps,  the  last  thing  arrived 
at,  after  free  trade  had  cemented  us.  But  give  me 
these  four  regulations,  —  no  war  without  arbitration 
between  English-speaking  peoples ;  arbitration  to  be 
offered  to  even'  nation  that  attacks  such  a  league: 
common  laws  as  to  patents,  copyrights,  and  money ; 


so 


III    Ml. I  I    . 


and,  i.i  -.1 1 ,-,  in  c  trade,      and  I ,  In  »plte  ol   Wo  ihlng- 
ton i  i cm. ii I . ■■.  about  i ho  dangoi  ol  untangling  .i 'ii 
.in-  ■   ,  clnro  predict  1  Iip<  ■  be  I Ime  will  nil Imatol .  • 

wlii'ii   i  In-   I  ,n"  1 1  li     i  .<  .i  I  in-   league    .ill  rlofond  ■in; 

one  I'-'i  i  "i  ll  ii  1 1  I- 1 'i  ho  foi oe  "i  -ill  ltn  pn 1 1 .-..     W hat 

k1     ould   I  in  i  •"  oompli  ii  '     It  n  ould  make  I  be 

IK    1 1  I  ,    COUIplotC    'Ii  .Ii.iimIiii;;    ()|       I .  i  i  i  <  I  i  i  i  t  •    .1.1  inn-  I    ::;iI'm 

in  .ill  ICngll  ii  ■.|.cii  .in;;  nation       Ii.  won  hi  reduce  tho 
1  .•■-  "I  .nun'     on  tho  I  "ii  ' 1  non I ■  "i   huropo,  although 
Oi  M 1 1.1  n  y  and  Franco  might  not  belong  to  wui  h  an  all! 
.in''      ( >m-  |i.n  1  .«ii  tho  force  ol  ( "i  in.  in  v  1 1  kept  up 
because  ol  the  power  ol  ' '  1 1  ■■' I  1  -M 1 .1  in .     Not  only  ii 

I'  I    Hi'  <•    1 1'   I     HI    I" III"  1 1  ,    I  ill  I     I  ,lr  '  l.i  li'l      1        .1  I    ■  1   ,     .  1  H'l     (  ..   1 

in  in  j ,  .iii  hough  n"i  given  to  m.ii [ng  war,  Ii  given  to 

in'  li  pi '  i>.ii  .ii i"i  w  'I  .ii"  in.il.i-  peace  ad  \  I  able 

to  nil    I101    neighbors      1  ho  |i"ih"ii   "I    the  aliiaueo 
opono  1  1 "  .1 1 1  i'  I.   1 1 1  mi  1  in-  land  would  ho  in   India 

l  li<-   I'  i"  11 ild   I"'  attaokod    (Vow   \\ muda   hottoi 

1I1, in  li"in  ;in\  iiIIki  ijii.mIi  1       I'.ui  /mil  three  hundred 

,iii<I     I ir,  nl  1/  lir,-     mil/mint     oj     /"■•/'I',    Ittt     l/i<iii     i:,ti/     llml 
thrU    "'ill    li'irr    j',  iirr    Willi    itir/i    ot/irf,    <t  ml,    illl    linhnif 

for  ii,  thru  will  nit  1  ni'iii  1 1/  have  prites  with  thn  world 
I  Applttu  0  I 

\  "in  (Jharli  :  H noi   wi I   horo   \  oai b  njzn,  and 

IM.i'l       .1     ;   |.i-i  1   li     |n|     j  .1  . 1  i  .     .      but     ll      W  -i        In  I  I    1  11     l"l 

tune  to  on   <  1 1 ■■  1 1  iiii   .1    'nl  1  ml  "ii  tho  edge   of 

the  I   1 1  1 1  iii''  civil  conflict  tho  woi id  ovor  nq w , 

■    ' '  1  'i  one,      tho  Thlrtv  boars'  Wai      1 1"1  lunl  fu  i 

1 1  t,  and   regarded  out    huttloN  iim  ouh    n   police 

v nl   i<n   1  in-  execution  ol   the  lawi     Lie  did 

mil  .hIiihi   that  in    peace  prinolploi  wore  fundamon 


m  B0BBBAB1    ''•'  'i  ii  i's.  '"'I 

tally  oomproxnised  by  am  thing  he  <liil  in  Biipport  of 
ihr  Union  during  our  *  -  i  x  i  1  oonfliot.  It  was  the 
dream  of  many  cultivated  men  in  Boston  and  Cam- 
bridge twenty  five  years  ago,  thai  we  bad  oorae  to 
-tii  .1.1  in  wliuli  w.ii ■ ;  were  to  I"'  unpopular  with  oul- 
ture  throughout  the  world,  li  is  the  dream  of  manj 
men  of  oulture  pet,  thai  suoh  an  era  is  ahead  of  us. 
Oui  great  commissions  for  the  disoussion  of  inter- 
national Law,  and  for  the  arrangemenl  of  oomraon 
lilies  in  oommeroe,  are  full  of  hope  to-day,  although 
most  of  their  members  are  lawyers  and  dry  men  of 
the  world,  that  Belf-interes1  will  ultimately  prevent 
u.ir  between  people  of  the  English-speaking  class. 
1 1  H  altogether  too  early  for  us  to  look  upon  our 
Peaoe  Sooietiea  as  timely  organizations?  Arc  they 
nut.  ;i  promise  to  winch  at  this  season  we  maj  well 
h  ten  i  i"  a  bugle  oalling  us  from  afar,  and  ha^ 
[ng  in  ii  more  hope  than  was  in  the  bugles  heard  at 
Luoknow?  "England  and  America,"  wrote  Carlyle 
t,,  Diokens  In  1845,  "are  properly  m>t  two  nations, 
hut  one,  inseparable  bj  anj  human  power  or  diplo- 
ni. k  \  ;  being  already  united  h\  Heaven's  Act  oi 
Parliamenl  and  nature  and  praotioal  intercourses 
indivisible  brother  elements  of  the  same  great  Sas 
ONDOM,  to  whioh  in  all  honorable  ways  be  long  life." 
When  Charles  Sumner's  oration  For  peaoe  was  made, 

in. I    ;i    leu    .ii.  I.s   of   OUlture    wen'    inclined    lo    think 

•  h.ii   Tcnn\  on    ang    omething  authoi Ital Ive  w hen 
In-  said,  — 

"  i  dipt  Into  tha  tutura  far  u  human  aya  oould  iae, 

.s.iw  tha  vision  oi  tha  w « •  1 1  I  and  .ill  ii"'  wonder  that  would  l><< 


62  HEREDITY. 

Till  the  war-drum  throbbed  no  longer,  and  the  battle-flags  were 

furled, 
In  the  parliament  of  man,  the  federation  of  the  world." 

Locksley  Hall. 

You  say  that  these  words  are  outgrown  ;  but  a  late 
poetess,  whom  England  loves  to  call  Shakspeare's 
daughter,  was  to  the  very  last  hour  of  her  life  in- 
clined to  the  same  opinions.  It  ill  becomes  us  dull 
people,  when  a  Mrs.  Browning  sings  ahead  of  us, 
not  to  see  her  spirit  from  the  Unseen  beckoning 
England  and  America  and  the  ages  to  the  final 
realization  of  her  own  ideal :  — 

"  Rise :  prefigure  the  grand  solution 

Of  earth's  municipal  insular  schisms  — 
Statesmen,  draping  self-love's  conclusions 

In  cheap  vernacular  patriotisms. 
Bring  us  the  higher  example  :  release  us 
Into  the  larger  coming  time. 
No  more  Jew  or  Greek  then — taunting 

Nor  taunted :  no  more  England  nor  France, 
But  one  confederate  brotherhood,  planting 

One  flag  only,  to  mark  the  advance, 
Upward  and  onward,  of  all  humanity. 

"  National  voices,  distinct  yet  dependent, 
Ensphering  each  other  as  swallow  does  swallow, 
With  circles  still  widening  and  ever  ascendent 
In  multiform  life  to  united  progression. 
These  shall  remain. 

"  Each  Christian  nation  shall  take  upon  her 
The  law  of  the  Christian  man  in  vast: 

The  crown  of  the  getter  shall  fall  to  the  donor, 
And  last  shall  be  first,  and  first  shall  be  last, 

And  to  love  best  shall  still  be  to  reign  unsurpassed." 

Italy  and  the  World 


NECESSARY   BELIEFS.  63 


THE  LECTURE. 


When  we  hear  the  noise  of  the  falling  water,  or 
the  hiss  of  the  steam  which  drives  a  loom,  we  do  not 
confuse  the  power  of  these  agents  with  that  of  the 
weaver.  The  unintelligent  forces  of  the  waterfall 
or  the  steam  are  contrasted  with  the  weaver,  much 
as  the  blind  chemical  and  physical  forces  at  work  in 
living  organisms  are  contrasted  with  life.  You  know 
that  the  steam  and  the  water  cause  the  movements 
of  the  loom,  and  yet  that  the  weaver  co-ordinates 
those  movements.  The  rude,  sightless  forces  of  the 
waterfall  and  of  the  steam  may  be  essential ;  but  they 
do  not  construct  the  machinery  which  they  move,  and 
there  can  be  no  weaving  until  there  is  a  loom.  Even 
after  the  appropriate  mechanism  has  been  brought 
into  existence,  you  must  have  the  weaver  to  co-ordi- 
nate its  activities.  He  does  not  put  forth  all  the 
force-  there  is  in  the  loom,  but  he  co-ordinates  it  all. 
Surely  there  is  a  distinction  between  co-ordinating, 
and  causing  the  movements  of  germinal  matter. 
Sometimes  the  weaver  makes  the  loom,  and  moves 
it,  too.  In  this  life,  chemical  and  physical  forces 
play  through  the  organism ;  but  when  we  drop  the 
natural,  and  acquire  a  spiritual  body,  perhaps  the 
change  is  analogous  to  that  which  occurs  when  a 
weaver,  whose  loom  has  been  moved  by  a  waterfall 
or  steam,  dispenses  with  their  aid,  and  sets  the  loom 
in  motion  by  his  own  force. 

In  the  defence  of  the  authority  of  the  necessary 
beliefs,  or  axiomatic  truths  of  the  intellect  and  con- 


64  HEREDITY. 

science,  against  the  pretences  of  materialism,  what 
are  some  of  the  uses  which  can  be  made  of  a  just 
and  verifiable  definition  of  life  ? 

1.  Correctly  defined,  life  in  physical  organisms  is 
the  power  which  co-ordinates  the  movements  of  germinal 
matter. 

2.  This  definition  is  not  intended  to  apply  to  dis- 
embodied life,  nor  to  the  Divine  Existence. 

It  is  a  definition,  not  of  life  merely,  but  of  life  in 
physical  organisms. 

3.  It  is  identical  with  Aristotle's  definition  of  life 
as  the  cause  of  form  in  organisms. 

4.  Co-ordination,  the  greatest  marvel  in  the  struc- 
ture of  living  tissues,  is,  by  this  definition,  put  in 
the  foreground. 

5.  But  the  co-ordination  of  the  movements  of 
germinal  matter  or  bioplasm  only  is  mentioned,  for 
no  other  form  of  matter  in  living  tissues  has  the 
power  of  movement. 

Inorganic  matter  does  not  move,  formed  matter 
does  not  move,  except  as  each  is  moved  by  the  bio- 
plasts. To  account  for  the  changes  in  the  position 
of  the  former,  we  must  therefore  fasten  our  attention 
on  the  movements  of  the  latter.  The  defect  of  Spen- 
cer's, and  of  many  other  attempted  definitions  of 
life  in  physical  organisms,  is  that  such  life  is  not 
spoken  of  as  connected  always  with  germinal  mat- 
ter. Spencer  is  justly  criticised  by  Drysdale  for 
not  confining  the  range  of  his  definition  to  this 
peculiar  kind  of  matter  called  bioplasm.  (Drys- 
dale, Protoplasmic  Theory  of  Life,  London,  1874,  p. 


NECESSARY   BELIEFS.  65 

176.)  It  is  now  conceded  even  by  Huxley  that  life 
exists  only  in  the  matter  of  the  bioplasts.  Where 
life  came  from,  he  says,  we  do  not  know ;  but  we  do 
know,  that,  so  far  as  human  observation  has  extended, 
life  has  been  found  only  in  connection  with  bioplasm. 
Therefore,  in  the  definition  of  life  in  physical  organ- 
ism, bioplasm  must  be  prominently  mentioned. 

Why  not  say  that  life  in  physical  organisms  is  the 
power  which  co-ordinates  the  movements  of  the  bio- 
plasts? Because  there  are  individual  animalcules 
which  have  life,  and  yet  consist  apparently  not  of 
many  bioplasts,  but  of  a  single  naked  throbbing 
mass  of  this  germinal  matter.  When  such  an  ani- 
mal wishes  to  digest  its  food,  it  sometimes  thrusts 
the  nutriment  into  its  side,  making  a  stomach  there, 
which  absorbs  the  pabulum ;  and  then  the  debris  is 
removed,  and  the  animal  is  whole  again.  This  pro- 
cedure evidently  involves  a  co-ordination  of  move- 
ments ;  and  we  say  that  the  action  by  which  such  an 
animalcule  digests  its  food  is  not  the  result  of  chemi- 
cal and  mechanical  forces  merely,  but  of  life  which 
directs  them,  or  of  a  power  which  co-ordinates  the 
throbbing  of  that  single  mass  of  bioplasm  of  which 
the  animalcule  may  consist.  There  is  a  co-ordination 
there  such  that  a  process  essential  to  the  preservation 
of  the  animal  is  carried  through  triumphantly ;  and 
the  chemical  and  physical  forces,  as  we  have  seen  in 
previous  lectures,  do  not  account  for  that  co-ordi- 
nation. Something  must  account  for  it ;  and  that 
something  we  call  life.  The  power  is  there,  for  we 
see  its  effects.     But  when  we  rise  to  the  more  com- 


66  HEKEDITY. 

plex  organisms,  the  fact  of  co-ordination  stands  out 
before  us  with  blazing  vividness.  "We  have  co-ordi- 
nation upon  co-ordination,  wheel  within  wheel;  and 
the  cause  of  the  co-ordination  we  call  life. 

6.  The  definition  does  not  assert  that  life  causes 
the  movements  of  the  germinal  points  or  bioplasts, 
but  only  that  it  co-ordinates  those  movements. 

7.  It  does  not  deny  that  chemical  and  physical 
forces  may  act  through  the  bioplasts,  but  only  that 
these  forces  can  account  for  the  co-ordination  of  their 
action,  or  for  the  origination  and  preservation  of 
form  in  organisms. 

What  follows  from  this  definition? 

It  is  my  conviction,  that,  in  discussing  the  nature 
of  life,  our  faces  are  turned  toward  a  land  hi  which, 
sooner  or  later,  most  important  discoveries  are  to 
be  made.  My  feeling  is  that  the  debate  between 
atheists  and  theists  is  to  be  settled  in  the  country 
of  which  we  now  stand  on  the  edges  in  biology. 
So  far  as  there  is  a  debate  concerning  fundamental 
truth,  so  far  as  the  great  questions  concerning  neces- 
sary beliefs  are  drawn  into  dispute,  they  are  to 
be  settled  here,  partly  by  biological  and  partly  by 
metaphysical  knowledge.  The  great  Scottish-Amer- 
ican metaphysician,  President  McCosh  of  Princeton, 
has  spent  a  life  in  opposing  the  associational  school 
in  philosophy.  His  various  defences  of  the  funda- 
mental truths,  intuitions,  axioms,  and  necessary  be- 
liefs, are  the  best  that  have  been  made  in  the  English 
language,  and  from  the  metaphysical  side  of  research, 
since   the   death  of    Sir  William   Hamilton.      (See 


NECESSARY  BELIEFS.  67 

Mill's  reply  to  McCosh,  in  the  third  edition  of  his 
Examination  of  Hamilton'' s  Philosophy  ;  and  the  reply 
to  Mill,  in  the  appendix  to  McCosh's  Defence  of 
Fundamental  Truth,  pp.  435-470.)  He  said  to  me 
the  other  evening,  what,  he  has  often  said  publicly, 
and  what  I  therefore  venture  to  quote :  "  The  asso- 
ciational  school  is  disappearing.  It  soon  will  have 
disappeared  entirely.  Schopenhauer  and  Hartmann, 
too,  will  disappear.  Hermann  Lotze  will  not.  It  is 
wise  to  keep  now  in  the  foreground  the  physiological 
part  of  philosophy,  for  that  is  the  battle-field  of  the 
future."  The  defence  of  fundamental  truth  upon 
which  I  am  venturing  here  is  based  upon  physiologi- 
cal considerations  quite  as  much  as  upon  metaphysi- 
cal. It  is,  in  short,  to  stand  upon  that  definition  of 
life  which  I  hope  was  defended  adequately  in  thir- 
teen lectures  which  have  already  been  given  here  on 
Biology. 

Since  there  is  nothing  so  good  as  eyesight  for  the 
quenching  of  doubt  on  all  biological  questions,  I  beg 
leave  to  surest  to  those  who  are  not  deficient  in 
leisure,  that  one  of  the  best  objects  they  can  buy,  in 
these  days  of  costly  Christmas  presents,  is  an  efficient 
microscope.  There  is  more  and  more  use  of  the 
microscope  by  all  students  of  philosophy.  Some- 
times serious  interests  are  subserved  even  by  the 
amateur  study  of  biology.  You  can  in  the  few 
evenings  at  your  disposal,  in  a  couple  of  years,  make 
yourselves  competent  to  read  the  very  best  special- 
ists in  biological  science.  Until  you  read  them,  and 
learn   how   to   test   their   processes    and   to    obtain 


68  HEREDITY. 

knowledge  at  first  hand,  you  may  find  your  minds 
full  of  unrest  on  all  these  great  physiological  and 
philosophical  themes.  Until  you  can  approach  in- 
telligently the  supreme  authorities  among  the  spe- 
cialists on  these  topics,  you  may  be  easily  misled 
by  second-rate  materialistic  writers ;  and,  therefore, 
I  advise  you,  as  a  guide  in  biological  reading,  to 
make  an  adequate  personal  study  of  living  tissues. 
Perhaps  it  is  not  improper  for  me  to  hint  that  I  fol- 
low my  own  advice,  as  it  seems  to  be  taken  for  granted 
by  certain  critics  of  the  bravely  anonymous  species 
that  this  is  not  the  fact.  This  city  has  the  credit  of 
having  produced  the  best  microscope  in  America,  a 
kind  of  freak  of  science  and  fortune,  a  one  seven  cy- 
fifth  objective,  and  one  that  perhaps  could  not  now 
be  produced  again.  Photographs  taken  by  this  in- 
strument I  have  lately  seen  commended  most  highly 
in  the  Paris  Journal  de  Micographie  (number  for 
November,  1877).  That  microscope  is  at  the  service 
of  this  audience ;  and  I  hope  to  bring  to  you  testi- 
mony from  it  again  and  again  in  the  course  of  the 
next  few  months,  as  I  did  last  winter  in  the  lectures 
on  Biology.  Some  time,  when  the  noon  can  be 
darkened  in  this  room,  I  am  to  give  you  its  work 
actually  in  progress  on  a  screen  here,  so  that  we  shall 
obtain  the  facts  at  first  hand. 

It  has  been  hinted  here,  that  Butler  and  Agassiz 
are  perhaps  correct  in  assuming  that  the  argument 
for  man's  immortality,  by  striking  against  the  possi- 
bility of  the  immortality  of  instinct,  is  not  wrecked, 
but  glorified.    For  saying  precisely  what  Bishop  But- 


NECESSARY  BELIEFS.  69 

ler  has  said  (Analogy,  part  i.  chap,  i.),  I  hare  lately 
been  sharply  assailed  by  some  one  who  fights  under 
a  mask,  indeed,  but  who  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  his  article  points  out  not  a  single  error  of 
biological  fact  in  a  discussion  which  he  blames  you 
for  applauding  ignorantly.     [Applause.] 

When  this  house  is  as  full  as  it  is  to-day,  there 
are  in  it,  among  the  fifteen  hundred  or  two  thou- 
sand persons  present,  and  representing  all  shades 
of  opinion,  at  least  three  or  five  hundred  liberally 
educated  men  who  know  what  they  are  about ;  and 
I  repel  indignantly  all  the  scapegrace  scribble  of 
anonymous  writers,  whether  in  the  newspaper  or 
quarterly  press,  against  an  audience  which  has  been 
drawn  together  now  for  more  than  two  years  on  the 
busiest  hour  of  the  busiest  day  of  the  week,  sim- 
ply by  large  and  complicated  themes,  and  not  by 
the  speaker.  You  have  come  here  to  listen  to  very 
imperfect  discussions  of  very  important  themes ;  and, 
although  I  am  not  a  native  of  New  England,  I  dare 
affirm  that  there  is  not  on  this  continent  another 
city  that  would  send  out  for  as  long  a  period  and 
at  such  an  hour  an  audience  as  large  as  this  to 
study  problems  as  complicated  as  those  that  have 
come  before  you.  [Applause.]  My  opinions  are 
not  worth  a  rush ;  but  the  general  agreement  of 
five  or  eight  hundred  or  a  thousand  scholarly  per- 
sons is  a  sign  of  the  times.  You  blame  me  for 
having  allowed  a  renowned  publishing  firm,  whose 
judgment  in  matters  of  taste  is  not  often  ques- 
tioned, to  preserve,  in  the  first  editions  of  the  lee- 


70  HEREDITY. 

tures  delivered  here,  a  slight  record,  made  not  by 
me,  but  by  the  stenographer,  of  what  this  audience 
has  said.  Thomas  Carlyle  made  a  speech  at  Edin- 
burgh, a  Lord  Rector's  inaugural  address,  before 
scholars  and  the  people  at  large.  He  sits  down  to 
edit  his  works  in  a  costly  final  edition  for  posthu- 
mous circulation.  He  left  in  all  the  audience  said. 
(See  Cap.lyle's  collected  works,  vol.  xi.  pp.  295- 
334.)  It  would  have  been  my  preference,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  taste,  to  have  left  out  what  this  audience  said ; 
but  it  is  so  peculiar  an  audience  that  it  was  thought 
the  examples  of  Carlyle  and  Phillips  —  for  Phillips's 
speeches  are  edited  in  the  same  way,  hisses  and  all 
recorded,  as  they  have  been  here  —  were  worth  fol- 
lowing. Had  I  been  hissed  here  as  often  as  Phillips 
was  in  the  days  of  the  anti-slavery  contestx  I  should 
have  thought  those  remarks  of  the  audience  quite  as 
worthy  of  preservation  as  the  others ;  and,  if  any 
have  thought  that  the  audience  has  expressed  it- 
self partially,  please  let  the  other  side  be  heard  here, 
and  it  shall  be  recorded.  [Applause.]  I  have  not 
the  honor  of  a  personal  acquaintance  with  fifty  per- 
sons in  this  audience.  It  appears  to  be  thought 
that  I  have  paid  people  for  coming  here,  and  ap- 
proving what  may  happen  to  be  said  on  this  plat- 
form. There  are  no  officers  in  this  church,  and  no 
creed  either,  except  clearness.  I  am  entirely  free,  I 
suppose,  from  bondage  here,  except  to  the  law  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest.  [Applause.]  You  come 
here  for  reasons  best  known  to  yourselves,  and  as- 
suredly you  are  perfectly  independent  of  this  plat- 


NECESSARY  BELIEFS.  71 

form.  The  public  understands  these  facts.  What 
you  have  said,  if  you  please,  has  gone  very  much 
further  than  any  thing  I  have  said.  Pardon  me  for 
this  digression,  but  let  me  affirm  that  there  was  not 
a  little  of  consideration  of  the  matter  before  it  was 
decided  that  what  you  said  should  be  preserved  in 
any  record  of  the  proceedings  here.  I  repeat,  that, 
as  a  matter  of  taste,  I  should  have  been  willing  to 
have  left  it  out ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  influence,  and  as 
a  means  of  tiding  readers  through  dry  discussion,  I 
was  willing  to  leave  it  in,  after  the  precedents  of 
Phillips  and  Carlyle.  I  hold  that  my  opinions  are 
not  worth  noticing,  but  that  the  general  agreement, 
week  after  week,  month  after  month,  and  year  after 
year,  of  an  audience  as  peculiar  as  this,  is  a  sign  of 
the  times ;  and  I  find  that  those  who  are  most 
opposed  to  what  you  have  said,  and  to  its  being 
recorded,  are  those  who  are  most  opposed  to  the 
opinions  you  have  approved.     [Applause.] 

If  we  are  convinced  that  life  has  been  correctly 
defined,  we  can  now  go  on  to  make  inferences  from 
that  definition,  of  the  most  commanding  interest. 

1.  Matter  is  co-ordinated  in  living  tissues. 

2.  Some  adequate  force  co-ordinates  matter  in  liv- 
ing tissues. 

3.  The  co-ordinating  force  must  exist  before  it  can 
act. 

4.  It  must  act  before  it  can  co-ordinate  the  matter 
contained  in  the  tissues. 

5.  The  co-ordinating  force,  therefore,  exists  and 
acts  before  the  organism  winch  it  co-ordinates. 


72  HEREDITY. 

Excuse  the  shortness  of  the  steps  I  take  in  the  ele- 
mentary stages  of  this  argument.  It  is  very  neces- 
sary, occasionally,  in  following  out  the  links  of  a 
course  of  thought,  to  use  propositions  that  seem  self- 
evident.  The  strength  of  an  argument  is  in  the  self- 
evident  propositions  which  it  contains.  Using  often 
here  the  form  of  statement  which  the  logicians  call  a 
catena,  I  shall  be  allowed,  for  the  sake  of  brevity 
and  clearness,  to  develop  argument  by  the  use  of 
ordinal  numbers  for  cardinal  points. 

6.  The  co-ordinating  force  directing  the  movements 
of  germinal  matter  is  defined  as  life. 

7.  Life,  therefore,  is  the  cause  of  organization,  and 
not  organization  the  cause  of  life. 

8.  As  the  cause  must  go  before  the  effect,  life 
exists  and  acts  before  the  organization  which  it 
causes. 

9.  It  exists  and  acts  on  a  plan. 

10.  In  each  different  type  of  physical  organism,  it 
exists  and  acts  on  a  different  plan. 

11.  Every  living  being  breeds  true  to  its  land. 
We  now  approach  wholly  new  matter  in  the  shape 

of  inferences  from  propositions  already  elaborately 
discussed  here. 

12.  In  the  transmission  of  the  co-ordinating  force 
called  life,  the  force  remains  unchanged  in  the  type 
of  its  action. 

Of  course  I  am  not  forgetting  the  slight  exceptions 
to  this  law,  or  variation  in  heredity ;  but,  to  speak 
roundly,  the  great  rule  of  hereditary  descent  is  that 
like  breeds  like. 


NECESSARY   BELIEFS.  73 

13.  The  different  types  of  organisms  are  implicitly 
contained  in  the  co-ordinating  force  of  their  several 
germs. 

11.  The  different  physical  organs  are  in  the  plan 
of  this  co-ordinating  force. 

15.  The  different  spiritual  faculties,  including  the 
conscience  in  the  case  of  man,  are  implicitly  pro- 
vided for  in  the  plan  on  which  the  co-ordinating  force 
acts. 

16.  Among  the  faculties  of  the  soul  provided  for 
in  the  plan  which  antedates  the  germ  of  the  body, 
are  the  perceptions  of  self-evident  truths,  both  intel- 
lectual and  moral. 

17.  The  necessary  beliefs  of  the  intellect  and  con- 
science are  therefore  in  the  original  plan  of  the  soul. 

18.  They  are  brought  into  activity  by  experience. 
The  loom  is  worthless  unless  it  has  something  to 

weave.  When  I  affirm  that  the  necessary  beliefs  are 
connate,  I  do  not  assert  that  they  effect  any  thing 
for  philosophy  before  we  come  into  contact  with  the 
exterior  world,  and  with  our  own  inner  world.  We 
must  have  something  to  weave,  before  we  can  pro- 
duce a  web.  But,  in  spite  of  all  that,  the  web  is  not 
the  loom ;  neither  did  the  web  or  waterfall  or  steam 
produce  the  loom. 

19.  As  original  parts  of  the  co-ordinating  power  in~ 
volved  in  the  origination  and  transmission  of  life,  the 
necessary  beliefs  of  the  intellect  and  conscience  are  as 
independent  of  the  structure  and  environment  of  the 
co-ordinated  organism  as  a  cause  is  of  its  effect. 

"20.  As  original  parts  of  the  co-ordinating  power 


74  HEREDITY. 

called  life,  they  are  as  independent  of  the  habits 
or  experience  of  the  co-ordinated  organism  as  the 
loom  is  independent  of  the  water  and  of  the  steam 
which  throws  it  into  action,  or  of  the  plan  of  the 
web. 

21.  As  provided  for  in  the  original  peculiarities  of 
the  transmitted  co-ordinating  power  in  man,  and  as  in- 
dependent of  their  own  effects,  the  necessary  beliefs  can- 
not be  invalidated  by  the  pretence  that  they  depend  on 
our  environment,  and  ivould  have  been  different  had  our 
experience  been  different. 

Consider  the  marvel  of  a  tropical  forest.  Charles 
Kingsley,  with  powers  of  description  rarely  matched, 
pictures  for  us  the  High  Woods  he  entered  on  a  day 
of  which  you  will  read  the  record  in  his  fascinating 
book,  "  At  Last,"  a  prose  poem  from  its  opening  to 
its  close.  Palms  of  twenty  species  towered  above  his 
head  there  under  the  torrid  noon ;  and  around  them 
ran  vines  of  hundreds  of  kinds,  fattening  in  the  tropi- 
cal sunlight.  Minor  shrubs  sprang  up,  filling  all  the 
interstices  of  the  woods.  Ripened  fruits,  which  we 
gather  and  prize  as  rarities,  were  dropping  through 
the  scented  silence.  On  the  ground  he  looked  for 
refuse,  but  found  none.  He  searched  for  the  debris 
of  fallen  trunks,  but  that  was  no  longer  visible ;  for 
such  is  the  vigor  of  tropical  growths,  that  this  refuse 
of  the  woods  is  sucked  up  at  once  into  the  enlarging 
tissues  of  the  vegetation  standing  in  the  soil.  There 
are  no  rotting  leaves  and  trunks  in  a  great  tropical 
forest.  The  matter  contained  in  such  sheddings  is 
absorbed  swiftly  into  the  fatness  of  the  vegetation, 


NECESSARY  BELIEFS.  75 

which  grows  so  rapidly  that  you  may  almost  hear 
its  progress.  Above  you  are  fifty  kinds  of  birds : 
around  you,  as  many  kinds  of  animals ;  a  million 
kinds  of  life  of  all  sorts,  —  insects,  birds,  animals, 
trees,  plants.  And  now  you  know,  my  friends,  per- 
fectly well,  that  every  seed  in  that  tangle  of  the  trop- 
ics produces  its  like.  There  is,  in  all  the  collision  of 
tendencies  in  that  marvel  of  intricate  forces  with 
power  striking  upon  power,  no  jostling  of  a  pre- 
'  determined  plan  off  its  grooves.  Your  palm  always 
breeds  a  palm,  your  parrot  a  parrot,  your  ape  an  ape, 
and  your  invisible  insect  one  like  itself.  There  is  no 
shrub  so  lowly,  there  is  no  animal  so  lordly,  as  to  be 
free  from  the  power  of  the  law  by  which  like  breeds 
like.  The  co-ordination  of  all  these  forms  proceeds 
from  some  adequate  cause.  Wherever  an  organic 
form  is  produced,  we  find  that  in  the  origin  of  it 
there  are  forces  at  work  which  land  on  the  mystic 
bioplasmic  shore  with  a  constitution.  Our  fathers, 
off  the  coast  of  Massachusetts,  assembled  in  the 
cabin  of  "  The  Mayflower,"  and,  before  they  landed, 
drew  up  a  civil  compact.  They  put  foot  on  Plymouth 
Hock  by  no  means  carelessly.  They  landed  on  the 
American  coast  with  a  plan.  Just  so,  in  this  tropical 
forest,  although  there  are  a  million  coasts  and  a  mil- 
lion boats  drawing  near  them,  every  boat  has  a  plan. 
In  the  cabin  of  every  ship  that  is  to  touch  that  mys- 
tic strand  of  the  tropics,  we  have  a  council  and  a 
compact  draAvn  up.  Certain  it  is,  that,  among  flic 
million  Plymouth  Rocks  on  which  the  co-ordinating 
powers  of  the  germs  land,  there  is  not  one  pressed  by 


76  HEREDITY. 

a  careless  foot.  Everywhere  the  co-ordinating  powers 
land  on  the  bioplasmic  shore,  each  with  a  constitu- 
tion drawn  up  beforehand  in  the  cabin  of  its  May- 
flower.    [Applause.] 

The  constitution  of  a  germ  is  a  compact  which 
cannot  be  lightly  changed.  We  see  that  there  must 
be  conflicts  in  the  tropical  forest.  There  are  the 
Norse  palms  and  the  Puritan  pines.  Here  are  the 
Dutch  and  the  Norwegians ;  here  are  all  tribes  of 
men  represented  by  the  different  classes  of  vegeta- 
tion. They  collide ;  they  are  all  under  the  law  of 
the  struggle  for  existence  and  the  survival  of  the 
fittest ;  but  they  adhere  to  their  types.  These  com- 
pacts, arranged  in  the  cabins  of  the  Mayflowers,  are 
respected  in  spite  of  all  jostlings  of  forces  off  their 
grooves.  Indeed,  there  is  no  jostling  of  a  force  off 
its  grooves,  unless  after  ages  and  ages  of  slight  vari- 
ation. I  am  not  denying  the  law  of  variation  in 
asserting  roundly  the  law  of  heredity  in  sameness. 
The  plan  is  there  as  the  bioplasmic  boats  land ;  and 
we  may  def}r  all  science  to  deny  the  assertion  that 
every  thing  there  is  in  the  form  of  the  palm  is  in  the 
plan  that  was  arranged  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower 
of  the  palm  before  the  boat  of  the  palm  touched  the 
coast.  Every  thing  there  is  in  the  plan  of  the  par- 
rot was  in  the  thought  of  the  occupants  of  the  May- 
flower of  the  parrot  before  it  landed.  There  is  a 
constitution  brought  to  the  Plymouth  Rock  of  every 
germ.  In  that  constitution,  I  hold  that  we  have  a 
plan,  not  only  of  the  form  of  the  body,  but  of  the 
faculties  and  intuitive  beliefs  of  the  soul.  [Ap- 
plause.] 


NECESSARY   BELIEFS.  77 

Go  back,  however,  to  the  time  when,  as  some  say, 
the  types  of  all  germs  were  only  four  in  number. 
Darwin  has  never  committed  himself  to  materialistic 
evolution.  He  has  alwa}-s  asserted  that  the  first 
living  germs  were  brought  into  existence  by  the 
Creator  of  all  things.  But  now,  if  you  put  into 
these  first  germs  a  constitution  that  will  develop  on 
one  line  into  vertebrates,  on  another  into  radiates, 
on  another  into  articulates,  and  on  another  into  mol- 
lusks,  you  have  four  fundamental  forms  of  life,  as 
Agassiz  taught.  Even  when  you  reduce  these  Plym- 
outh Rocks  to  four,  you  d0  not  reduce  the  number 
of  words  in  }*our  constitutions  at  all.  In  the  four 
.constitutions  of  the  vertebrates,  articulates,  radiates, 
and  mollusks,  are  contained  implicitly  all  the  provis- 
ions which  your  millions  and  millions  of  constitu- 
tions, developed  from  the  foar,  contain  explicitly. 
These  four  constitutions  might  be  reduced  to  one, 
and  yet  contain  no  fewer  syllables.  In  the  mystic 
constitution  of  your  original  germinal  matter  you 
have  the  sum  of  all  the  provisions  of  the  multitu- 
dinous constitutions  developed  from  it,  to  show,  that, 
when  God  landed  on  the  bioplasmic  shore  which  he 
had  himself  created,  he  landed  with  a  plan.  [Ap- 
plause.] There  was  in  the  cabin  of  the  May- 
flower which  preceded  the  first  germinal  matter,  a 
compact  drawn  up,  and  in  it  were  the  possibilities  of 
all  divergences  from  the  first  life,  or  the  syllables 
describing  all  the  maltitudinously  interlaced  forms 
of  vegetation  and  animal  existence  in  this  tropical 
forest.      Whatever   there   is   wonderful   in   develop 


78  HEREDITY. 

ment  was  in  the  original  source  of  the  developing 
process;  so  that  I  am  justified  in  asserting  that  the 
reduction  of  all  the  constitutions  or  types  of  life  to 
four,  or  even  of  the  four  to  one,  is  no  reduction  of 
the  marvel  of  the  original  compact  in  the  cabin  of 
God's  heart. 

If  matter  is  inert,  we  know  that  it  does  not  move 
itself ;  and  assuredly  it  is  getting  to  be  time  for  us 
to  give  up  the  theory  that  matter  is  not  matter  and 
can  move  itself,  now  that  Tyndall  has  done  so.  Look 
into  his  Birmingham  address,  and  you  will  find  Tyn- 
dall saying  that  if  matter  has  two  sides,  —  a  physical 
and  a  spiritual,  —  we  must  account  for  the  two  sides, 
and  that  it  is  just  as  hard  to  account  for  the  two 
sides  as  it  is  to  adopt  the  hypothesis  that  matter  does 
not  originate  force.  (See  Tyndall's  Birmingham 
address  in  "  Fortnightly  Review,"  December,  1877.) 
The  doctrine  of  the  lectures  given  on  this  platform 
is  what  is  usually  called  "ideal  realism,"  —  scholars 
will  allow  me  to  use  the  technical  phrase,  —  the  doc- 
trine of  Germany  at  this  moment  in  her  academic 
philosophy,  not  in  her  unacademic.  Separate  always 
the  two  great  schools  of  recent  German  philosophy, 
■ — the  academic  and  the  non-academic. 

The  New  York  Tribune  lately  did  not  know  who 
Hermann  Lotze  is,  but  it  appears  that  Professor 
Wundt  of  Heidelberg  does.  (See  Wundt's  essay 
on  German  philosophy,  in  "  Mind,"  October,  1877.) 
If  any  of  you  will  read  a  series  of  articles  by  Lotze, 
that  are  to  appear  in  "  The  Contemporary  Review," 
or  the  references  to  him  in  the  new  quarterly  called 


KECESSARY   BELIEFS.  79 

"Mind,"  or  the  translation  of  Mikrokrosmus,  which 
is  to  be  given  to  the  world  soon,  as  I  hear,  by  a 
scholar  of  our  Cambridge,  you  will  be  able  to  make 
in  English  an  acquaintance  with  this  man.  Proba- 
bly the  Tribune  does  not  read  the  "  Zeitschrift  f iir 
Philosophic,"  published  at  Halle.  This  is  the  fore- 
most philosophical  journal  of  its  class  in  the  world, 
and  is  full  of  the  work  of  Lotze  and  of  his  school  in 
modern  German  thought.  It  is  unfortunate  and 
unnatural  that  the  literary  editor  of  "The  Tribune," 
who  has  the  public  reputation  of  having  been  a  friend 
of  Theodore  Parker,  should  appear  to  have  no  out- 
look in  philosophy  beyond  the  Straits  of  Dover,  or  at 
least  none  any  later  than  those  misleading  glimpses 
which  Parker  caught.  If  this  able  and  honored 
newspaper  knows  nothing  of  Hermann  Lotze,  it  is 
so  much  the  worse,  not  for  him,  but  for  one  depart- 
ment of  the  New  York  Tribune.  The  doctrine  of 
established  philosophy  in  Germany  is  ideal  realism, 
and  that  is  all  that  I  am  asserting.  Matter  has  no 
capacity  to  originate  force  or  motion.  It  may  transmit 
it,  but  it  does  not  originate  it ;  and  so  the  power  of 
co-ordinating  tissues,  or  of  producing  life,  does  not 
belong  to  it.  Besides  matter,  there  is  but  one  other 
thing  in  the  universe, — mind;  and  so  behind  the 
movements  of  matter  there  must  be  mind.  Although 
mind  may  be  co-extensive  with  matter,  the  identity 
of  mind  and  matter  cannot  be  asserted  by  any  one 
who  loves  clear  ideas.  Therefore  the  co-ordinating 
power,  the  constitution  drawn  up  in  the  cabin  of 
the  Mayflower,  is  to  be  attributed  to  mind. 


80        *  HEREDITY. 

Has  this  discussion  a  practical  bearing  ?  I  can  gc 
to  twenty  universities  in  the  world,  and  find  young 
men  asserting  that  one  thing  is  just  as  divine  as 
another.  Wrong  is  as  natural  as  right,  and  what- 
ever is  natural  is  divine.  The  moral  intuitions  of 
which  the  ethical  teachers  say  so  much  are  only  one 
part  of  nature  ;  the  worst  passions  are  another  part ; 
and  what  gives  one  portion  of  nature  authority  over 
another?  The  bad  man  is  brought  forth  by  the 
Supreme  Powers,  and  the  good  man  is ;  and,  to  a 
consistent  materialism,  the  one  is  just  as  divine  as 
the  other.  If  I  go  to  Tyndall  and  Hackel,  they  say 
that  the  one  is  no  more  responsible  than  the  other, 
and  that  the  will  is  never  free.  How  are  we  to  jus- 
tify any  thing  like  clearness  of  thought  in  ethical 
philosophy,  unless  we  can  justify  these  fundamental 
beliefs  which  materialism  itself  takes  for  granted,  but 
with  which  it  plays  fast  and  loose?  These  percep- 
tions of  primitive  axioms  are  something  not  depend- 
ing on  any  thing  outside  of  us,  but  are  original 
capacities  of  the  constitution  of  the  soul,  and  would 
have  been  the  same,  no  matter  what  our  experience 
had  been.  When  a  doctrine  works  badly,  I  hold 
that  it  is  scientifically  discredited  as  out  of  harmony 
with  the  nature  of  things ;  and  this  doctrine  that  the 
fundamental  beliefs  are  useless,  or  uncertain  sources 
of  knowledge,  works  disastrously  in  the  long  range. 
I  do  not  mention  these  evil  effects  of  denying  self-evi- 
dent truths  as  proof  that  our  necessary  beliefs  are  au- 
thoritative ;  but  I  use  these  effects  to  illustrate  the 
fact  that  there  are  practical  issues  involved  of  the  most 


NECESSARY  BELIEFS.  81 

transcendent  consequence  in  the  justification  of  fun- 
damental truth.  All  we  can  say  concerning  con- 
science is  undermined  for  some,  by  a  certain  philoso- 
phy of  hereditary  descent,  which  asserts  that  even 
the  moral  perceptions  of  self-evident  ethical  truth  are 
solely  the  result  of  habit,  and  might  have  been  dif- 
ferent had  our  ancestors  had  a  different  environment. 
The  intuitions  represent  no  outward  reality.  We 
may  as  well,  in  the  fog  of  our  philosophy,  when  we 
know  but  very  little,  follow  impulse,  and  forget  en- 
tirely all  that  is  said  on  this  topic  of  the  self-evident 
intellectual  and  moral  truths. 

22.  The  necessary  beliefs,  or  perceptions  of  self- 
evident  truths,  therefore,  are  a  part  of  the  original 
revelation  given  to  the  soul  by  its  Author,  in  the 
very  plan  according  to  which  it  exists  and  acts. 

23.  As  such,  the  necessary  beliefs  of  the  intellect 
and  conscience  are  the  supreme  and  final  tests  of 
truth,  or  the  unassailable  guaranty  of  all  mathemati- 
cal and  ethical  axioms. 

24.  An  adequate  defence  of  fundamental  truth, 
therefore,  is  made  by  the  establisl  ment  of  a  proper 
definition  of  life.     [Applause.] 


IV. 

DAKWIN'S  THEORY  OF  PANGENESIS. 

THE   NINETY-FOURTII   LECTURE   IN   THE    BOSTON 

MONDAY   LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED   IN 

TREMONT    TEMPLE,    DEC.    SI. 


Partout  ou  se  manifeste  le  mouveinent  physiologique  par  leqnel 
1'organisation  commence,  un  principe  spirituel  est  immediatement 
present.  —  Lotze:  Psychologie,  ed.  Penjon. 


It  is   strictly   and  philosophically  true  in  nature   and  reason, 
that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  chance.  —  Samuel  Clarke. 


IV. 

DARWIN'S    THEORY    OF    PANGENESIS. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

An  ancient  wall  around  the  city  of  Gcittingen  has 
been  converted  into  a  broad  and  lofty  embankment, 
and  crowned  with  lime-trees ;  and  under  them  runs  a 
wide,  smooth  walk,  on  which  the  professors  and  stu- 
dents of  that  university  city  are  often  found  pacing 
to  and  fro.  There  has  been  established  lately  in 
Great  Britain  a  magazine  called  "  The  Nineteenth 
Century ; "  and  it  has  signalized  its  entrance  upon 
the  field  of  periodical  literature  by  what  it  calls  a 
modern  symposium,  or  published  interchange  of 
views  among  men  of  opposing  schools  in  physical  and 
religious  science,  on  the  topic  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul.  So  thoroughly  permeated  are  the  discus- 
sions of  many  English  theologians  with  tremor  in  the 
presence  of  the  passing  fashions  of  thought  in  the 
British  materialistic  philosophical  school,  that  I  shall 
venture  to  ask  you,  in  considering  what  the  English 
symposium  has  said,  to  place  that  gathering  of  learned 
men  face  to  face  with  their  German  peers.      Let  a 

85 


86  HEREDITY. 

new  symposium  be  called  on  these  walks  of  Gottin- 
gen,  under  the  lime-trees. 

Of  course  we  must  invite  to  the  assembly  the 
ten  men  prominent  in  the  English  symposium :  Mr. 
R.  H.  Hutton,  Professor  Huxley,  Lord  Blachford, 
the  Hon.  Roden  Noel,  Lord  Selborne,  Canon  Barry, 
Mr.  W.  R.  Greg,  the  Rev.  Baldwin  Brown,  Dr.  W. 
G.  Ward,  and  Mr.  Frederick  Harrison. 

Let  us  invite  out  of  the  theological  faculties  of 
benighted  Germany,  Professor  Schoberlein  from  Got- 
tingen  University,  an  accomplished  and  tested  teacher 
of  systematic  theology.  He  has  had  a  high  position 
in  the  faculty  at  Gottingen  for  almost  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  and  probably,  therefore,  must  teach  mediae- 
val views.  From  just  beyond  this  wall  of  Gottingen, 
on  which  the  nightingales  sing,  invite  out  of  the 
brown  mansion  yonder,  among  the  orchards,  Her- 
mann Lotze.  Let  us  take  also,  from  the  same  city 
and  university,  the  renowned  defender  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  atonement,  Reitschl,  whose  recent  book  on 
the  Vicarious  Sacrifice  any  one  must  study  who 
wishes  to  be  abreast  of  modern  thought  on  that 
theme.  Then  from  Halle  let  us  invite  Julius  Miiller 
and  Kostlin  and  Ulrici.  The  first  of  these  three  is 
often  called  the  ablest  of  living  theologians;  and 
the  last,  as  you  know,  is  the  editor  of  the  "  Zeit- 
schrift  fur  Philosophic,"  the  foremost  philosophical 
magazine  in  the  world.  Let  us  take  from  Leip- 
sic  Kahilis  and  Luthardt,  and  especially  Delitzsch, 
who  has  written  a  work  on  Biblical  Psychology,  a 
topic   running   close   to  the  theme   of  the   English 


darwin's  theory  of  pangenesis.  87 

Bymposium.  From  Berlin  let  us  invite  a  scholar 
who  is  often  called  the  ablest  German  theologian, 
and  who  in  1873  was  a  delegate  to  the  Evangelical 
Alliance  at  New  York,  Professor  Dorner,  a  man  so 
far  behind  the  times  as  to  be  trusted  yet  in  the  lead- 
ing university  of  the  world  to  represent  the  foremost 
chair  of  a  department  hallowed  by  the  great  names 
of  Schliermacher,  Trendelenburg,  and  Neander. 

These  twenty  men,  ten  British  and  ten  German, 
are  pacing  up  and  down  on  the  Gottingen  walks, 
and  we  inexpert  people  listen.  Frederick  Harrison, 
an  English  essayist  and  positivist,  speaks  first.  This 
is  his  language  :  — 

"  My  original  propositions  may  be  stated  thus :  — 

"  1.  Philosophy  as  a  whole  —  I  do  not  say  specially 
biological  science  —  has  established  a  functional  rela- 
tion to  exist  between  every  fact  of  thinking,  willing, 
or  feeling,  on  the  one  side,  and  some  molecular 
change  in  the  body  on  the  other  side. 

"  2.  This  relation  is  simply  one  of  correspondence 
between  moral  and  physical  facts,  not  one  of  assimi- 
lation. The  moral  fact  does  not  become  a  physical 
fact,  is  not  adequately  explained  by  it,  and  must  be 
mainly  studied  as  a  moral  fact,  by  methods  applicable 
to  morals,  —  not  as  a  physical  fact,  by  methods  appli- 
cable to  physics. 

"  3.  The  correspondences  specially  discovered  by 
biological  science,  between  man's  mind  and  his  body, 
must  always  be  kept  in  view.  They  are  an  indispen- 
sable, inseparable,  but  subordinate  part  of  moral 
philosophy. 


88  HEREDITY. 

"  4.  We  do  not  diminish  the  supreme  place  of  the 
spiritual  facts  in  life  and  in  philosophy  by  admitting 
these  spiritual  facts  to  have  a  relation  with  molecular 
and  organic  facts  in  the  human  organism;  provided 
that  we  never  forget  how  small  and  dependent  is 
the  part  which  the  study  of  the  molecular  and 
organic  phenomena  must  play  in  moral  and  social 
science. 

"  5.  Those  whose  minds  have  been  trained  in  the 
modern  philosophy  of  law  cannot  understand  what 
is  meant  by  sensation,  thought,  and  energy  existing 
without  any  basis  of  molecular  change ;  and  to  talk 
to  them  of  sensation,  thought,  and  energy  continuing 
in  the  absence  of  any  molecules  whatever,  is  precisely 
such  a  contradiction  in  terms  as  to  suppose  that 
civilization  will  continue  in  the  absence  of  any  men 
whatever. 

"  6.  Yet  man  is  so  constituted,  as  a  social  being, 
that  the  energies  which  he  puts  out  in  life  mould 
the  minds,  characters,  and  habits  of  his  fellow-men ; 
so  that  each  man's  life  is,  in  effect,  indefinitely  pro- 
longed in  human  society.  This  is  a  phenomenon 
quite  peculiar  to  man  and  to  human  society,  and  of 
course  depends  on  there  being  men  in  active  associa- 
tion with  each  other. 

"  7.  Lastly,  as  a  corollary,  it  may  be  useful  to 
retain  the  words  '  soul '  and  '  future  life '  for  their 
associations ;  provided  we  make  it  clear  that  we  mean 
by  soul  the  combined  faculties  of  the  living  organism, 
and  by  future  life  the  subjective  effect  of  each  man's 
objective  life  on  the  actual  lives  of  his  fellow-men." 
(Nineteenth  Century.') 


darwin's  theory  of  pangenesis.  89 

Translating  into  the  ordinary  speech  of  mortals 
this  first  outburst  of  wisdom,  we  find  it  to  mean  that 
there  can  be  no  existence  of  the  soul  apart  from  the 
body.  Science  has  proved  that  there  is  a  molecular 
tremor  connected  with  all  thought,  emotion,  and 
choice ;  and  if  death  is  really  our  total  disembodi- 
ment, then,  for  a  man  who  holds  that  there  must  be 
a  tremor  of  some  form  of  matter  connected  with 
choice,  thought,  and  emotion,  there  is  no  proof  of 
immortality.  This  essayist  is  probably  of  opinion 
that  religious  science  teaches  that  death  is  not  only 
an  unfettering  of  the  soul,  but  a  real  and  total  dis- 
embodiment of  it  in  every  sense.  Posthumous  influ- 
ence is  all  the  immortality  in  which  he  can  believe. 

Let  now  the  German  symposium  speak.  This  me- 
diaeval teacher  of  systematic  theology,  Professor 
SchiJberlein  of  Gottingen  University,  on  his  own 
field,  his  native  heather,  opens  his  lips ;  and  this  is 
the  first  thing  we  hear  from  him.  I  give  you  exactly 
his  language,  out  of  a  volume  he  published  at  Heidel- 
berg in  1872,  called  "  Die  Geheimisse  des  Glaubens," 
a  work  of  reputation  as  excellent  as  that  of  its  author 
in  German  theology :  "  God  has  destined  soul  and 
body  to  exist  in  eternal  unity  with  each  other.  There 
is  a  natural  body,  and  there  is  a  spiritual  body. 
Bodilessness  implies  a  hinderance  in  free  self-reserva- 
tion. The  highest  perfection  of  the  future,  no  less 
than  of  the  present  life,  calls  for  the  corporeity  of 
the  soul."  (See  Professor  La  Ceoix's  translation 
of  Schoberlein,  Meth.  Quar.  Rev.,  October,  1877, 
p.  G87.) 


90  HEREDITY. 

This  essayist,  Harrison,  looks  astounded.  The 
nightingales  on  the  Gottingen  wall  continue  to  sing. 
"  The  soul,"  says  Schoberlein,  "  appropriates  from 
the  outer  world  the  materials  suitable  for  its  body. 
The  formation  of  the  body  is  not  a  result  of  mere 
chemical  affinities  between  different  elements  of  mat- 
ter, but  it  is  a  vital  process ;  it  proceeds  from  the 
animate  principle.  The  soul  assumes  to  itself  such 
elements  as  adequately  express  its  life  and  wants.  It 
itself,  and  not  chemical  affinities,  is  the  organizing 
principle."     (Ibid,  p.  687.) 

Look  into  the  faces  of  Julius  Miiller  and  Dorner, 
and  Delitzsch  and  Lotze,  and  especially  into  the 
contenance  of  Ulrici,  and  you  find  no  marked  signs 
of  dissent.  There  is  general  agreement  with  what 
Professor  Schuberlein  says.  Lotze  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century  has  opposed  the  mechanical  theory  of  life. 
Ulrici  has  defended  more  than  once,  in  the  name  of 
biological  science,  the  theory  that  the  soul  has  an 
ethereal  enswathment  from  which  it  is  not  separated 
at  death. 

To  these  scholars  the  separation  of  the  soul  from 
the  flesh  is  its  unfettering,  but  not  its  disembodiment. 

Frederick  Harrison  seems  to  be  smitten  with  a 
new  idea.  But  he  is  of  opinion  that  this  is  not 
Christianity.  He  speaks  again :  "  For  my  part,  I 
hold  Christianity  to  be  what  is  taught  in  average 
churches  and  chapels  to  the  millions  of  professing 
Christians.  It  is  a  very  serious  fact  when  philo- 
sophical defenders  of  religion  begin  by  repudiating 
that  which  is  taught  in  average  pulpits."  (Nine- 
teenth Century.} 


Darwin's  theory  of  pangenesis.  91 

He,  therefore,  would  establish  for  philosophical 
science  inside  the  range  of  theology,  a  rule  that  he 
would  not  admit  in  the  range  of  philosophical  science 
as  connected  with  biology. 

Am  I  to  take  every  average  physiological  scribbler 
on  the  globe  as  authority  in  biology  ?  In  a  field 
of  investigation  which  was  nowhere  elaborately 
studied  previously  to  18G0,  am  I  to  adopt  the  av- 
erage views  even  of  magazine-writers,  infallible  as 
the  more  brilliant  periodicals  claim  to  be  ?  No  :  we 
are  to  look  to  experts  in  biology  for  our  facts.  And 
so,  in  our  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures,  we  are  to 
look  to  experts.  We  are  to  take  the  agreement  of 
rival  experts  in  the  field  of  theological  science  as 
supreme  authority,  just  as  we  take  the  agreement  of 
rival  experts  in  the  field  of  biological  science  as  final 
assurance  of  accuracy.  When  Frederick  Harrison 
accuses  this  learned  group  of  Germans  of  not  follow- 
ing the  scientific  method  emploj^ed  by  physical  re- 
search, Ulrici  replies  that  for  twenty-five  years  he  has 
been  teaching  the  applications  of  that  method  to  the 
relations  of  religion  and  science,  and  that  if  we  are  to 
be  sternly  true  to  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  we  must 
infer  the  existence  of  some  substance  in  which  our 
sense  of  identity  inheres.  Ulrici  affirms  that  it  is 
stern,  exact  inference  from  the  surety  of  our  per- 
sistent sense  of  identity,  that  there  is  something  to 
which  that  sense  belongs.  There  cannot  be  any 
seeing,  unless  there  is  something  that  sees.  There 
cannot  be  feeling,  unless  there  is  something  that 
feels.     Now,  we  have  a  persistent  sense  of  identity  ; 


92  HEREDITY. 

we  have  a  percipience  of  identity,  and  there  must 
be  a  perceiver  of  identity.  As  this  percipience  is 
constant,  the  perceiver  must  be  a  unit  from  year  to 
year,  although  the  body  changes  all  its  atoms  every 
few  years.  If  Ulrici  and  Schoberlein  and  Lotze, 
with  the  general  assent  of  their  compeers,  do  not 
seem  sound  to  certain  omniscient  writers  for  quar- 
terly reviews  on  our  self- illumined  New  England 
shore,  which  has  led  the  world  in  philosophy,  and 
which  needs  no  enlightenment  from  Halle,  or  Leipsic, 
or  Gottingen,  or  Berlin;  if  Sir  William  Hamilton 
happens  to  have  said,  fifteen  years  before  this  new 
discussion  came  up,  that  such  a  theory  is  not  very 
important, — we  of  course  shall  dismiss  it  without  any 
attention  to  dates  in  connection  with  Sir  William 
Hamilton's  opinion,  or  with  Ulrici's  and  Lotze's 
and  Schuberlein's  words  here  on  the  wall  of  Gotting- 
en. But  when  we  find  five  or  six  theological  facul- 
ties teaching  much  the  same  view,  we  shall  listen  to 
Schoberlein  when  he  says  further  : 

"We  must  come  to  the  standpoint  of  an  ideal 
realism,  which  holds  the  middle  path  between  a 
materialistic  deification  of  nature  on  the  one  hand, 
and  a  spiritualistic  contempt  of  it  on  the  other.  Pre- 
cisely this  is  the  standpoint  of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 
In  every  position  we  shall  take,  our  conscious  pur- 
pose will  be,  not  to  speculate  without  authority,  but 
simply  to  educe  into  fuller  expression  that  which 
appears  to  us  as  clearly  involved  in  the  Word  of 
inspiration  itself. 

'•'In  the  inorganic  world  we  find  matter  and  po- 


darwin's  theory  of  pangenesis.  93 

tency  undistinguishable.  Crystals,  for  example,  are 
formed  simply  by  the  immediate  action  of  the  spirit. 
It  is  only  in  the  plant  that  force  rises  to  some  sort 
of  individuality.  Here  there  is  a  vital  unity  which 
attracts  to  itself  homogeneous  elements,  and  thus 
gives  to  itself  an  outer  form.  Such  force  is  life,  and 
such  form  an  organism.  At  the  next  higher  stage 
force  becomes  animal  life.  Here  the  central  life  has 
sensation,  and  is  able  to  bring  its  organism  into  dif- 
ferent relations  to  the  outer  world.  Such  life,  or 
force,  we  call  soul :  such  a  sensitive,  movable,  soul- 
subservient  organism  is  a  body. 

"  The  body  is  rooted  with  all  the  fibres  of  its  being 
in  the  soul.  Nay,  the  soul,  on  its  nature-side,  bears 
already  within  itself  the  essence,  the  potentiality,  of 
a  body ;  and  it  needs  only  to  draw  to  itself  the  proper 
elements  from  the  outer  world,  in  order  that  the 
germinally  extant  inner  body  actually  posit  itself  as 
a  crude  outer  body,  even  as  the  virtually  extant  tree, 
in  the  ungerminated  seed,  needs  only  to  unfold  its 
potency  in  order  to  become  a  real  tree. 

"  The  body  appears,  therefore,  as  an  integral  ele- 
ment of  human  nature,  both  in  this  state  of  proba- 
tion, and  in  the  future  state  of  eternal  perfection. 

"  Jesus  spiritualized  his  inner  man,  his  soul,  in  its 
unity  of  spirit  and  of  nature.  Thus,  also,  he  laid 
the  foundation  for  the  transfiguration,  the  ideal 
spiritualization,  of  his  body,  inasmuch  as  the  essence 
of  the  visible  body  is  grounded  in  the  soul.  This 
process  was  an  inner  hidden  one.  The  hidden  reality 
shone  forth  only  in   occasional   gleams,  —  in    those 


94  HEREDITY. 

miracles  of  mastery  over  his  body,  and  over  nature, 
with  which  the  Gospels  abound.  We  emphasize  sim- 
ply the  identity  of  the  risen  with  the  buried  body. 
The  essence  of  his  body  remained  the  same  :  simply 
the  mode  of  its  existence  was  changed.  A  fleshly 
body  has  become  a  spiritual  body,  in  which  not  only 
the  free  harmony  of  the  soul  with  the  inborn  spirit 
stamps  its  harmony  on  the  outer  features,  but,  also, 
in  which  the  material  elements  themselves  are  thor- 
oughly permeated  and  exalted  by  the  spirituality  of 
the  person." 

Allow  me  to  say  that  I  was  not  aware  that  Scho- 
berlein  had  taught  these  doctrines,  when,  in  recent 
lectures  here,  I  defended  similar  propositions.  It 
was,  I  confess,  not  known  to  me,  until  I  made  close 
research  in  the  track  of  purely  theological  discussion, 
that  an  accredited  teacher  like  Schoberlein  had  made 
this  use  of  Ulrici's  and  Lotze's  biological  positions. 
But  we  continue  to  look  into  the  faces  of  our  Ger- 
man symposium,  and  find  no  important  dissonances 
there. 

Schuberlein  goes  on,  and  illustrates,  from  all 
the  facts  of  the  life  of  our  Lord,  the  power  of  the 
spiritual  body  over  the  physical.  You  are  familiar 
with  the  line  of  thought.  In  Schoberlein's  words,  we 
are  listening  to  suggestions  precisely  parallel  to  those 
presented  here  a  few  weeks  ago  (see  Boston  Monday 
Lectures  on  Conscience,  pp.  43-84)  :  "  The  peculiar 
traits  of  spiritual  beauty  which  occasionally  beam 
out  from  the  persons  of  ripened  believers  are  actual 
reflexes   of   the   transfigured   corporeity   which   lies 


DARWIN'S   THEORY   OF   PANGENESIS.  95 

potentially  within  them.  The  natural  fleshly  body 
is  simply  the  receptacle,  the  womb,  in  which  the 
new  bod}r  is  invisibly  generated  and  qualified,  up  to 
the  hour  when,  the  crude  flesh  falling  away,  it  shall 
pass  into  the  heavenly  state,  and  spring  forth  into  its 
full  beauty  and  actuality." 

The  nightingale  sings  in  the  lime-trees  on  the 
Gottingen  wall,  and  the  curtain  falls  here;  but  an- 
other week  we  shall  listen  further  to  this  symposium. 
At  these  accordant  propositions  from  theological  and 
biological  teachers,  Harrison  begins  to  grow  pale, 
and  judges  that  it  will  be  necessary  for  him  to  prove 
much  more  than  he  has  done  already,  if  he  is  to 
undermine  the  doctrine  of  immortality  from  the  point 
of  view  of  modern  philosophy  in  its  widest  range. 

THE   LECTURE. 

In  the  field  of  the  battle  of  Waterloo  there  was  a 
concealed  ditch  of  Oheim,  into  which  regiments  in 
retreat,  pushed  on  mercilessly  by  their  companions 
and  pursuers  in  the  rear,  were  cast  alive  until  the 
gap  was  full,  and  then  the  hosts  who  were  escaping 
from  death  passed  across  the  chasm  in  safety  on  the 
bridge  of  their  dead  predecessors.  The  ditch  of 
Oheim,  in  the  battle  of  Waterloo  between  the  theis- 
tic  and  materialistic  forms  of  the  theory  of  evolution, 
is  hereditary  descent.  How  are  we  to  fill  up  the 
chasm  between  life  in  the  parent  and  life  in  the 
child,  and  use  only  the  narrow  mechanical  theory  of 
the  origin  of  living  tissues  and  of  the  soul?  Say 
what  you  please  of  the  subtler  forms  of  German  ma- 


96  HEREDITY. 

terialism,  which  I  am  not  now  discussing,  the  Eng- 
lish forms  are  only  other  shapes  of  the  old  Lucre- 
tian  atomic  theory.  At  the  last  analysis,  every  me- 
chanical theory  of  life  is  only  a  redressed  ghost  of 
Lucretius.  When  candidly  unmasked,  nearly  all 
that  has  been  given  to  us  from  England  in  support 
of  materialism  exhibits  the  faded  features  of  the 
Lucretian  hypothesis.  Many  and  many  a  theory  has 
fallen  into  the  ditch  of  Oheim  in  this  battle.  Lu- 
cretius himself  lies  there  at  the  bottom,  a  corpse. 
Fifty  proud  systems  of  materialistic  philosophy  lie 
above  it ;  and  now,  writhing  there  on  the  very  sum- 
mit, under  the  hoofs  of  the  retreating  hosts,  lies 
Darwin's  theory  of  pangenesis.     [Applause.] 

What  is  Darwin's  famous  provisional  hypothesis  of 
pangenesis,  and  what  are  some  of  the  replies  to  it Q 
First,  let  me  give  you  an  outline  of  the  theory  in 
language  containing  no  technical  terms ;  next,  let  me 
state  the  theory  in  Darwin's  own  words ;  and,  after- 
ward, permit  me  to  mention  the  more  important  of 
the  objections  which  may  be  made  to  its  fundamental 
propositions. 

Suppose  that  we  have  here  a  single  naked  mass  of 
homogeneous  bioplasm  [drawing  a  figure  like  that  of 
an  amoeba  upon  the  blackboard].  Let  it  be  assumed 
that  this  piece  of  germinal  matter  is  of  one  and  the 
same  substance  in  all  its  parts.  It  may  be  a  living 
creature  of  one  of  the  lowest  types.  If,  now,  this 
throbbing  homogeneous  bioplasm  throws  off  from  any 
part  of  its  substance  a  portion  of  itself,  the  divided 
offspring  will  have  qualities  like  those  found  in  every 


darwjn's  theory  of  pangenesis.  97 

part  of  its  parent.  We  know  that  it  is  a  peculiarity 
of  bioplasm  to  divide  and  subdivide  itself.  By  a 
marvellous  law  of  growth,  the  divided  portions,  when 
properly  nourished,  increase  in  size,  and  acquire  all 
the  qualities  of  their  parent.  A  minute  particle  or 
gemmule  thrown  off  from  a  single  mass  of  homo- 
geneous bioplasm  grows  according  to  the  laws  which 
belong  to  its  parent,  and  becomes  a  mass  like  that 
from  which  it  dropped  off.  Physical  identity  be- 
tween the  parent  and  the  child  is  the  groundwork 
of  the  explanation  of  the  physical  side  of  the  law  of 
heredity  in  sameness. 

But  now  suppose  that  this  animalcule,  instead  of 
being  a  single  mass  of  bioplasm,  consists  of  a  more 
or  less  intricate  structure.  Let  it  be  assumed  that 
the  upper  and  lower  side  differ,  and  that  each  of  these 
has  qualities  distinct  from  those  of  the  middle  portion. 
If  you  are  to  account  for  the  reproduction  of  that 
triplicate  animal,  you,  according  to  Darwin's  theory 
of  pangenesis,  must  suppose  a  small  mass  of  bioplasm 
thrown  off  from  the  lower  section,  another  from  the 
middle  part,  and  another  from  the  upper.  Call  the 
three  portions  of  the  animal  1,  2,  and  3,  and  the  gem- 
mules  thrown  off  from  these  parts  respectively  A,  B, 
and  C  [illustrating  on  blackboard].  A  will  have  the 
qualities  of  the  portion  of  the  animal  from  which  it 
comes;  that  is,  of  1.  B  will  possess  the  qualities  of 
2,  and  C  of  3. 

You  have,  in  this  crucial  case  of  hereditary  descent, 
the  law  of  identity  of  substance  in  parent  and  gem- 
mule  carried  out  in  a  threefold  manner.     There  is 


98  HEREDITr. 

identity  between  1  and  A,  2  and  B,  and  3  and  C. 

The  nourishing  of  the  three  gemmules  will  result, 
therefore,  not  in  changing  A  into  B,  or  B  into  C,  or 
the  reverse,  but  in  changing  A  into  a  second  1,  B 
into  a  second  2,  C  into  a  second  3.  When,  now,  tins 
result  has  been  accomplished,  how  shall  we  account 
for  the  arrangement  of  the  newly  developed  parts  in 
the  proper  manner  ?  Every  thing  turns  on  their  being 
collocated  as  1,  2,  and  3,  and  in  no  other  order. 
Here  conies  into  Darwin's  theory,  therefore,  in  spite 
of  his  theistic  concessions  as  to  the  origin  of  the  first 
germs,  the  great  and  vague  materialistic  word  "  affin- 
ity." When  the  gemmules  have  begun  to  be  devel- 
oped, "  elective  affinities  "  start  up  between  them,  and 
they  arrange  themselves  in  the  order  exhibited  by 
the  parts  of  the  original  animal.  We  understand 
none  too  well  how  a  single  gem  mule  develops  itself 
into  a  form  like  its  parent.  The  permutations  that 
may  be  rung  on  three  nu'mbers  are  very  considerable  ; 
but  soon  we  shall  see  gemmules  choosing  the  one 
right  combination  out  of  all  permutations  possible  in 
billions  and  trillions  of  numbers.  It  is  not  abso- 
lutely inconceivable,  however,  that,  when  an  animal 
has  three  separate  parts,  a  gemmule  from  each  part 
should,  by  its  physical  identity  with  the  part  from 
which  it  comes,  inherit  the  property  of  developing 
into  that  part.  But,  on  Darwin's  implied  theory  of 
life,  what  causes  these  three  parts  to  put  themselves 
together  in  the  proper  way?  Were  either  gemmule 
to  forget  its  place,  we  should  have  a  singular  animal 
in  the  progress  of  that  development.     In  the  hurling 


darwin's  theory  of  pangenesis.  99 

about  of  all  these  gemmules,  under  merely  chemical 
and  physical  forces,  what  keeps  these  three  particles 
from  ever  getting  out  of  place  ?  How  much  must  be 
meant  by  elective  affinities  in  Darwin's  hypothesis? 
It  can  be  called  a  theory  only  by  courtesy. 

Materialism  assures  us  that  a  co-ordinating  power 
independent  of  matter  is  a  dream,  a  poetic  idea ! 
Huxley  says  that  "  a  mass  of  living  protoplasm  is 
simply  a  molecular  machine  of  great  complexity,  the 
total  results  of  the  working  of  which,  or  its  vital 
phenomena,  depend,  on  the  one  hand,  on  its  con- 
struction, and,  on  the  other,  upon  the  energy  sup- 
plied to  it ;  and  to  speak  of  vitality  as  any  thing  but 
the  name  of  a  series  of  operations  is  as  if  one  should 
talk  of  the  horologity  of  a  clock."  (Encyc.  Brit., 
art.  "  Biology.")  Huxley  is  not  a  materialist,  you 
say ;  but  I  must  judge  men  by  their  definitions,  and, 
although  there  are  many  schools  of  materialism,  I 
affirm  that  this  definition  of  Huxley's  represents  one 
of  the  most  dangerous  materialistic  schools ;  for  it 
assumes  that  the  forces  at  work  in  the  formation  of 
the  organism  are  merely  chemical  and  mechanical. 
There  is  no  life,  no  co-ordinating  power,  behind  the 
tissues. 

If,  therefore,  you  build  your  theory  of  descent  on 
the  mechanical  and  chemical  forces  merely,  you  must 
rest  the  weight  of  your  case  on  that  word  "  affinity." 
There  are  elective  affinities  between  the  qemmules 
of  the  different  parts  of  an  organism ;  and  the  result 
of  these  affinities  is  to  put  the  germinal  points  to- 
gether in  the  right  order,  so  that  the  resulting  animal 


100  HEEEDITY. 

shall  be  brought  into  existence  right  side  up.  As- 
suredly, your  affinities  must  be  very  peculiar  forces. 
Can  they  be  simply  chemical  and  mechanical,  and  yet 
adequate  to  their  work  ?  How  is  it  that  the  gem- 
mules  seem  to  be  possessed  of  an  inflexible  purpose 
of  coming  together  in  the  right  form,  so  that  the 
animal  shall  be  built  up  1,  2,  3,  and  not  3,  2,  1? 
What  if  the  first  number  should  drop  into  the  mid- 
dle? Nothing  but  mechanical  and  chemical  forces 
here,  Huxley  affirms  !  Darwin  refuses  in  his  theory 
of  pangenesis  to  employ  any  other  word  than  "  affin- 
ity." To  talk  about  other  forces  would  be  like 
talking  of  the  horologity  of   a  clock ! 

If  the  affinities  which  bring  the  gemmules  together 
in  the  right  order  are  merely  chemical,  they  are 
forces  of  a  kind  chemistry  knows  nothing  of  any- 
where else.  Here  is  a  species  of  affinity  that  exists 
only  in  germinal  matter.  Even  in  that  kind  of 
matter,  which  to  all  human  tests  is  chemically  the 
same  in  many  different  kinds  of  germs,  the  plans  of 
the  affinities  differ  as  endlessly  as  the  types  of  life. 

If,  now,  you  will  multiply  the  three  parts  of  this 
small  organism,  thus  far  used  as  an  illustration,  by 
a  number  representing  the  multitudinous  parts  in 
the  most  highly  organized  animal,  and  apply  the 
same  law  of  descent,  you  have  Darwin's  theory  of 
pangenesis.  We  have  here  [drawing  a  figure  on  the 
blackboard],  let  us  suppose,  the  outlines  of  some 
highly  complex  form  of  organism  ;  I  care  not  what  — ■ 
the  foot  of  a  frog,  or  the  palm  of  my  hand.  It  is  a 
mass  of  interlaced  living  tissues,  and  it  is  crossed  in 


darwin's  theory  of  pangenesis.         101 

every  direction  by  forms  differing  from  each  other  in 
outline,  position,  and  activity.  This  colored  biologi- 
cal chart  (Plate  III.,  Boston  Monday  Lectures  on 
Biology')  is  only  too  inadequate  an  illustration  of  the 
complexity  of  the  weaving  performed  by  the  bio- 
plasts. 

We  have  as  many  different  parts  in  one  of  these 
tissues  as  there  ever  were  in  lace-work,  and  multi- 
tudinously  more.  We  know  that.  But  Darwin  says, 
that,  just  as  every  part  of  a  small  and  simple  organ- 
ism throws  off  a  gemmule,  so  every  part  of  a  com- 
plex organism  throws  off  its  gemmule.  That  is,  we 
have  a  gemmule  from  this  corner  [indicating  on  the 
blackboard],  a  gemmule  from  this,  a  gemmule  from 
this,  a  gemmule  from  every  one  of  these  subdivided 
lines :  a  gemmule,  in  short,  from  every  cell  of  this 
organism,  —  a  complexity  absolutely  appalling  to  con- 
template, for  the  number  of  gemmules  must  be 
absolutely  inconceivable.  But,  although  they  go 
out  into  the  circulating  fluids  of  the  organism,  al- 
though in  the  vegetable  world  they  permeate  all 
the  sap  in  your  lily  of  the  valley,  they  are  never- 
theless collected  into  the  pollen  of  that  flower. 
Every  grain  of  that  dust  consists  of  aggregates  of 
all  these  gemmules.  Therefore,  when  a  pollen-grain 
is  subjected  to  the  proper  environment,  the  gemmules 
develop.  They  all  have  a  number.  There  may  be 
billions  and  trillions  of  them,  but  no  particle  for- 
gets its  place.  The  dance  of  the  gemmules  is  a 
labyrinth,  compared  with  which  all  the  movements, 
seen  and  unseen,  of  all  the  visible  and  invisible  stars 


102  HEREDITY. 

of  heaven,  is  simplicity.  But  these  points  of  matter, 
with  nothing  but  chemical  and  physical  forces  be- 
hind them,  as  Hackel  and  Huxley  would  say,  or 
with  nothing  but  elective  affinities  behind  them,  as 
Darwin  would  say,  never  make  a  mistake  in  a  single 
step.  They  come  together,  they  arrange  themselves, 
they  build  a  germ  that  will  produce  the  lily  of  the 
valley.  They  co-ordinate  themselves  so  as  to  con- 
stitute a  seed  which  3-011  cannot  develop  into  any 
thing  but  a  lily  of  the  valley  if  the  gemmules  come 
from  the  lily,  and  into  nothing  but  a  liop.  or  a  man 
if  the  gemmules  have  come  from  these  organisms. 

Gemmules,  it  is  supposed,  will  develop  only  in 
union  with  nascent  cells  like  those  from  which  they 
came.  Here  are  three  cells  arranged  in  a  series,  and 
the  second  grows  out  of  the  first,  and  the  third  out 
of  the  second.  When  all  these  cells  are  developed, 
each  drops  out  a  gemmule.  But  the  gemmule  pro- 
duced by  the  second  cell  will  not  develop  itself  un- 
less it  comes  into  union  with  a  gemmule  originated 
by  the  first  cell  and  already  started  in  its  growth. 
The  gemmule  from  the  third  cell  must  have  a  corre- 
sponding position  in  relation  to  the  gemmule  of  the 
second,  or  it  will  not  grow.  Thus  our  elective 
affinities,  the  complexity  of  which  has  already  as- 
tounded us,  need  to  be  raised  to  a  yet  more  incon- 
ceivable height  of  complexity.  We  are  bewildered 
under  the  demands  of  this  theory.  But  the  gem- 
mules are  not  bewildered.  Elective  affinity  keeps 
their  poor  heads  steady.  Each  gemmule  bethinks 
itself  of  its  duties,  takes  its  proper  place  in  the  swir] 


darwin's  theory  of  pangenesis.         103 

of  atoms  and  forces,  and,  with  no  co-ordinating  power 
outside  of  itself,  goes  unerringty  to  its  destination. 
There  is  your  theory  of  pangenesis  complete. 

Let  me  now  give  you  Darwin's  own  language  :  — 
"  It  is  universally  admitted  that  the  cells  or  units 
of  the  body  increase  by  self-division  or  proliferation, 
retaining  the  same  nature,  and  that  they  ultimately 
become  converted  into  the  various  tissues  and  sub- 
stances of  the  body.  But,  besides  this  means  of 
increase,  I  assume  that  the  units  throw  off  minute 
granules,  which  are  dispersed  throughout  the  whole 
system  ;  that  these,  when  supplied  with  j)roper  nutri- 
ment, multiply  by  self-division,  and  are  ultimately 
developed  into  units  like  those  from  which  they  were 
originally  derived.  These  granules  may  be  called 
gemmules.  They  are  collected  from  all  parts  of  the 
system  to  constitute  the  sexual  elements,  and  their 
development  in  the  next  generation  forms  a  new 
being  ;  but  they  are  likewise  capable  of  transmission 
in  a  dormant  state  to  future  generations,  and  may 
then  be  developed.  Their  development  depends  on 
their  union  with  other  partially  developed  or  nascent 
cells,  which  precede  them  in  the  regular  course  of 
growth.  Gemmules  are  supposed  to  be  thrown  off 
by  every  unit  or  cell,  not  only  during  the  adult  state, 
but  dnv'mg>each  stage  of  development  of  every  organ- 
ism ;  but  not  necessarily  during  the  continued  exist- 
ence of  the  same  unit.  Lastly,  I  assume  that  the 
gemmules  in  their  dormant  state  have  a  mutual  affin- 
ity for  each  other,  leading  to  their  aggregation  into 
buds  or  into  the  sexual  elements.     Hence  it  is  not  the 


104  HEREDITY. 

reproductive  organs  or  buds  which  generate  neiv  organ- 
isms, but  the  units  of  which  each  individual  is  composed. 
These  assumptions  constitute  the  provisional  hypoth- 
esis which  I  have  called  pangenesis."  (Animals  and 
Plants  under  Domestication,  vol.  ii.,  chap,  x.,  Ameri- 
can edition,  pp.  369,  370.) 

Every  unit  or  cell,  during  each  stage  of  the  devel- 
opment of  every  organism,  throws  off  its  gemmules. 
What  smooth  language  for  the  multitudinous  num- 
bers that  must  be  thrown  off !  Each  stage  may  mean 
every  three  minutes,  for  a  new  stage  is  reached  in 
some  rapidly  developing  plants  in  every  three  times 
sixty  seconds. 

"  If  one  of  the  protozoa  be  formed,  as  it  appears 
under  the  microscope,  of  a  small  mass  of  homoge- 
nous gelatinous  matter,  a  minute  particle  or  gemmule 
thrown  off  from  any  part,  and  nourished  under  favor- 
able circumstances,  would  reproduce  the  whole  ;  but, 
if  the  upper  and  lower  surfaces  were  to  differ  in  tex- 
ture from  each  other  and  from  the  central  portion, 
then  all  three  parts  would  have  to  throw  off  gem- 
mules,  which  when  aggregated  by  mutual  affinity 
would  form  either  buds  or  the  sexual  elements,  and 
would  ultimately  be  developed  into  a  similar  organ- 
ism. Precisely  the  same  view  may  be  extended  to 
one  of  the  higher  animals  ;  although  in  this  case 
many  thousand  gemmules  must  be  thrown  off  from 
the  various  parts  of  the  body  at  each  stage  of  devel- 
opment; these  gemmules  being  developed  in  union 
with  pre-existing  nascent  cells  in  due  order  of  suc- 
cession."    (Ibid,  p.  371.) 


DARWIN  S   THEORY   OF   PANGENESIS.  105 

What  are  some  of  the  replies  to  be  made  to  Dar- 
win's hypothesis  of  pangenesis? 

1.  The  hypothetical  gemmules  may  pass  every- 
where through  the  tissues  of  living  organisms.  They 
are  inconceivably  small. 

Charles  Darwin  calls  Lionel  Beale  "  a  great  author- 
ity." (Animals  and  Plants  under  Domestication,  vol. 
ii.  p.  372.)  I  fear  some  Darwinians  who  read  Beale 
are  not  candid  enough  to  agree  with  their  master  in 
that  opinion.  But  when  Darwin  cites  Beale  he  is  so 
frank  as  to  say  that  this  theory  of  pangenesis  has 
been  opposed  most  emphatically  by  Lionel  Beale,  and 
by  Mivart,  and  by  Professor  Delphino  of  Florence, 
whose  suggestions  Darwin  says  he  found  very  useful. 
This  great  authority,  Lionel  Beale,  of  whom  we  have 
heard  here  before  to-day,  admits  that  there  may  be 
masses  of  bioplasm  too  small  to  be  seen  with  the 
highest  powers  of  our  present  microscopes.  The 
gemmules,  however,  on  the  theory  of  pangenesis, 
must  be  almost  inconceivably  smaller  than  those  as- 
sumed particles  of  bioplasm,  for  every  such  particle 
in  every  stage  of  growth  must  throw  off  a  gemmule ; 
and  these  gemmules  from  all  the  Lioplasmic  points  of 
the  body  must  be  collected  in  a  little  shifting  dust 
which  we  call  the  pollen  of  a  plant.  In  your  palm 
and  your  oak  there  are  millions  of  bioplasmic  points; 
but,  according  to  Darwin's  theory,  every  unit,  that  is 
every  cell,  every  bioplasmic  point,  in  every  stage  of 
its  growth,  must  throw  off  gemmules,  and  these  must 
be  collected  together  in  the  pollen.  The  gemmules 
must  be  inconceivably  small,  to  be  contained  in  so 


106  HEREDITY. 

narrow  receptacles.  They  cannot  be  absolutely  in- 
finite in  numbers,  however,  for  if  so  they  could  not 
be  nourished.  Darwin  himself  says  that  "  excessive- 
ly minute  and  numerous  as  the  gemmules  are  believed 
to  be,  an  infinite  number  derived,  during  a  long  course 
of  modification  and  descent,  from  each  unit  of  each 
progenitor,  could  not  be  supported  or  nourished  by 
the  organism."  (Animals  and  Plants  under  Domesti- 
cation, vol.  ii.  chap,  x.,  American  edition,  p.  396.) 
Nevertheless  they  are  so  small  as  to  be  wholly  invisi- 
ble to  the  microscope.  That  is  an  important  point, 
for  it  makes  the  theory  one  which  it  is  very  difficult  to 
disprove.  The  gemmules  are  objects  of  the  imagina- 
tion. How  are  we  to  disprove  their  existence  ?  You 
may  imagine  the  gemmules  floating  in  the  blood,  and 
permeating  tissues  which  the  blood  cannot  penetrate. 
If  you  are  of  those  who  establish  their  theories  by 
supposing  that  what  cannot  be  disproved  is  proved, 
then  3-011  may  prove  the  existence  of  these  gemmules. 
Nobody  can  easily  disprove  the  existence  of  physical 
masses  which  the  best  microscope  cannot  perceive. 
It  is  all  a  matter  of  imagination  —  the  existence  of 
the  gemmules;  andwill.be,  probably,  for  ages  and 
ages  yet,  for  no  microscope  pretends  to  see  any  thing 
as  small  as  these  gemmules  must  be. 

One  thing,  however,  we  do  know, — that,  if  the  pan- 
genetic  gemmules  are  inconceivably  small,  they  must 
pass  everywhere  through  the  living  tissues.  They 
easily  permeate  cell-walls.  Therefore,  in  the  vege- 
table kingdom,  when  the  gemmules  pass  freely  from 
cell  to  cell,  we  should   suppose  that   a   bud   borne 


darwin's  theory  of  pangenesis.        107 

by  a  graft  would  certainly  be  affected  by  the  gem- 
mules  arising  in  the  root  and  body  of  the  stock. 
Such  is  not  the  case  in  many  instances.  Pips  from 
a  pear  grafted  on  a  quince-stock  will  not  give  rise  to 
a  hybrid  between  a  pear  and  a  quince.  The  stone 
of  a  peach  grafted  on  a  plum-stalk  will  not  grow  into 
a  tree  whose  stalk  bears  plums  while  the  extremities 
of  the  branches  bear  peaches. 

The  gemmules  of  the  quince  are  thrown  through 
the  walls  of  the  cells  in  the  scion  of  the  pear ;  they 
circulate  in  its  sap,  and  we  should  suppose  that  they 
would  produce  a  hybrid.  But  they  do  not.  We 
know  they  circulate  in  the  scion,  if  they  are  as  small 
as  they  must  be  according  to  this  theory.  But  we 
cannot  trace  them  by  the  effects  the  theory  requires 
them  to  produce  if  they  are  there.  We  find  no 
effects :  therefore  we  suppose  they  are  not  there. 
[Applause.] 

2.  Pangenetic  gemmules  might  pass  everywhere. 
They  can  leave  the  body  in  the  perspiration  and  the 
breath.  There  is  no  explanation  in  Mr.  Darwin's 
theory  for  the  presumed  fact  that  they  are  all  col- 
lected into  buds,  pollen,  or  any  one  similar  receptacle. 
(See  letter  by  Lionel  Beale,  in  "Nature,"  May 
11,  1871,  p.  26.) 

It  is  assumed  that  every  cell  of  every  tissue  throws 
off  a  gemmule  in  every  stage  of  its  development. 
Now,  the  gemmules  are  so  small  that  they  may  be 
breathed  away;  they  may  be  perspired  away.  Your 
lily  of  the  valley  and  your  palm  tossed  in  the  winds 
may  exude  gemmules  through  all  their  pores.     How 


108  HEREDITY. 

happens  it  that  the  representatives  of  no  one  cell  are 
ever  exuded  or  breathed  away  in  any  case  ?  Gem- 
mules  may  go  anywhere.  But  in  spite  of  all  the 
tossings  of  the  tissues,  in  spite  of  all  the  activities  of 
the  tissues  in  organisms  that  are  constantly  in  mo- 
tion, we  find  no  one  class  of  these  gemmules  lost. 
If,  for  instance,  the  gemmules  that  come  from  the 
lenses  in  the  eye  were  to  be  perspired  away ;  or  if, 
as  they  circulate  through  the  blood,  they  were  to  be 
breathed  away,  there  would  be  no  eye  in  the  off- 
spring. Now,  how  is  it  that  there  is  nothing  lost  out 
of  this  marvellously  complex  mass  of  gemmules,  when 
they  are  so  inconceivably  minute  that  hunting  for  a 
needle  in  a  haymow  is  plain  business  compared  with 
looking  for  a  gemmule  ?  This  is  the  best  form  of 
the  mechanical  theory  of  life ;  and,  in  the  name  of 
theories  as  wild  as  this,  some  of  us  are  asked  to  give 
up  our  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 

3.  The  hypothesis  makes  no  distinction  between 
a  unit  of  matter  and  the  unit  of  force  in  a  living 

o 

organism. 

The  individual  type  of  life,  or  co-ordinating  power 
in  a  germ  or  organism,  I  call  the  unit  of  force  in  that 
germ  or  organism.  A  single,  naked,  bioplasmic  mass 
is  the  unit  of  matter.  Cells  are  not  the  true  units  of 
matter  in  an  organism.  If  the  gemmules  are  formed 
by  the  breaking-off  of  minute  masses  from  the  units 
of  matter,  or  naked  bioplasts,  these  will  not  arrange 
themselves  unless  the  unit  of  force  or  co-ordinating 
power  of  life  is  behind  them. 

It  is  vastly  important,  I  think,  to  make  a  distinc- 


daetvin's  theory  of  pangenesis.         109 

tion  between  the  unit  of  matter  and  the  unit  of  force 
in  a  living  organism.  The  unit  of  matter,  at  the  last 
analysis  we  can  reach  in  unbraiding  the  living  tis- 
sues, is  the  structureless  naked  bioplast.  But  we 
know  that  behind  the  throbbing,  weaving  bioplasts, 
there  is  a  unit  of  force,  co-ordinating  their  motion. 
As  the  plan  on  which  they  weave  preserves  its  unity 
in  all  stages  of  development  of  the  animal,  we  con- 
clude that  the  unit  of  force  behind  them  preserves  its 
unity.  Take  as  many  points  as  you  please,  there- 
fore, of  these  units  of  matter,  and  you  cannot  arrange 
them  unless  you  have  your  co-ordinating  power  be- 
hind them  ;  and,  therefore,  you  gain  nothing  by  your 
theory  of  elective  affinities. 

4.  The  hypothesis  of  pangenesis  involves  several 
untenable  subsidiary  hypotheses. 

Professor  Delphino,  the  justice  of  whose  attack  is 
largely  admitted  by  Darwin,  points  out  eight  subor- 
dinate hypotheses  which  are  required  by  the  theory, 
and  that  several  of  them  are  not  tenable.  (See  Sci- 
entific Opinion,  Sept.  29,  1869,  p.  366,  and  Professor 
St.  George  Mivar.t,  Genesis  of  Species,  chap,  x.) 

The  gemmules  must  have  the  power,  in  certain 
cases,  of  producing  monstrosities  ;  that  is,  your  elec- 
tive affinities  must  be  capable  of  being  thrown  out 
of  their  grooves  occasionally. 

The  theory  does  not  account  for  the  fact  that 
sometimes  certain  gemmules,  although  nourished  like 
other  gemmules,  do  not  develop.  A  generation  passes, 
and  the  traits  of  the  parents  are  not  in  it.  In  the 
third  generation  the  traits  of  the  grandparents  may 


110  HEREDITY. 

re-appear.     Why  did  the  gemmules  lie  dormant  so 
long  ? 

The  hypothesis  does  not  explain  the  inherited 
effects  of  the  use  and  disuse  of  particular  organs. 
"  A  horse,"  says  Darwin  himself,  "  is  trained  to  cer- 
tain paces,  and  the  colt  inherits  similar  movements. 
Nothing  in  the  whole  circuit  of  physiology  is  more 
wonderful.  How  can  the  use  or  disuse  of  a  particu- 
lar limb  or  of  the  brain  affect  a  small  aggregate  of 
reproductive  cells  in  such  a  manner  that  the  being 
developed  from  them  inherits  the  characters  of  either 
one  or  both  parents  ?  Even  an  imperfect  answer  to 
this  question  would  be  satisfactory."  (Animals  and 
Plants  wider  Domestication,  vol.  ii.  chap,  x.,  American 
edition,  p.  367.) 

5.  The  theory  of  pangenesis  explains  every  thing 
by  the  elective  affinities  of  gemmules  for  each  other, 
but  leaves  these  elective  affinities  themselves  unex- 
plained. 

6.  According  to  Darwin's  own  concessions,  many 
facts  in  hereditary  descent  are  wholly  inexplicable  by 
his  hypothesis  ;  and  his  theory,  "  from  presenting  so 
many  vulnerable  points,  is  always  in  jeopardy." 

7.  The  hypothesis  is  rejected  by  the  foremost  au- 
thorities in  the  microscopical  investigation  of  living 
tissues. 

8.  The  theory  is  not  needed,  as  all  the  facts  it  is 
used  to  explain  are  accounted  for  by  defining  life 
as  the  power  which  co-ordinates  the  movements  of 
germinal  matter ;  and  by  assuming,  what  all  the 
facts  prove,  that  this  power  is  transmitted  in  heredi- 
tary descent.     [Applause.] 


V. 

DARWIN  ON  THE  OKIGIN  OF  CONSCIENCE. 

THE   NINETY-FIFTH   LECTURE    IN    THE    BOSTON 

MONDAY   LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED   IN 

TREMONT    TEMPLE,   JAN.  7. 


I  am  striving  hard  to  establish  the  sovereignty  and  self-exist- 
ent excellence  of  the  Moral  Law  in  popular  argument,  and  to 
slay  the  Utility  swine.  —  Emerson,  1829. 

Est  igitur  hsec,  judices,  non  scripta,  sed  nata  lex,  quam  non 
didicimus,  accepimus,  legimus,  verum  ex  natura  ipsa  arripuimus, 
hausimus,  expressimus;  ad  quam  non  docti,  sed  facti,  non  instituti, 
sed  imbuti  sumus.  —  Cicero  :  Oratio  pro  Milone. 


V. 


DARWIN    ON    THE    ORIGIN    OF    CON- 
SCIENCE. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

Twenty  learned  men,  ten  English  and  ten  Ger- 
man, assembled  as  a  modern  symposium,  are  walking 
up  and  down  on  the  wall  of  Gottingen.  Listening 
to  their  discussions,  we  find  it  impossible  to  under- 
stand their  references  to  the  complex  whole  of  man's 
nature,  unless  we  adopt  Luther's  division  of  the 
human  being  into  three  parts,  bod}-,  soul,  and 
spirit.  We  have  been  accustomed  to  speak  of  man 
as  body  and  soul  only,  and  to  make  no  distinction 
between  soul  and  spirit.  We  have  used  a  twofold, 
but  Delitzsch  and  Schoberlein  employ  a  threefold, 
division  of  man's  nature.  When  we  recollect,  how- 
ever, the  Biblical  language,  we  find  that  Luther  had 
warrant  for  saying,  as  Delitzsch  on  the  wall  of  Got- 
tingen quotes  Mm,  that  the  Scripture  divides  man 
into  three  parts  :  "  God  sanctify  you  through  and 
through,  that  thus  your  whole  spirit,  soul,  and  body 
ma)'  be  preserved  blameless."  Luther,  in  his  exposi- 
tion of  the  Magnificat  for  the  year  1521,  says  that 

113 


114  HEREDITY. 

Moses  made  a  tabernacle  with  three  distinct  com- 
partments. The  first  was  called  sanctum  sanctorum, 
within  which  dwelt  God,  and  there  was  a  divine 
light  therein ;  the  second  was  sanctum,  within  which 
stood  a  candlestick  with  seven  lamps  ;  the  third  was 
called  atrium,  the  court,  and  it  was  under  the  open 
heaven  in  the  light  of  the  sun.  In  the  same  figure 
a  Christian  man  is  depicted.  His  spirit  is  sanctum 
sanctorum,  God's  dwelling-place.  His  soul  is  sanc- 
tum :  there  are  seven  lights ;  that  is,  all  kinds  of 
understanding,  discrimination,  knowledge,  and  per- 
ception of  bodily  visible  things.  His  body  is  atrium, 
which  is  manifest  to  every  man,  that  it  may  be  seen 
what  he  does  and  how  he  lives.  Thus  taught  St. 
Augustine  also,  and  many  an  accredited  Biblical 
scholar  before  Luther. 

This  Delitzsch  who  is  speaking  is  a  professor  at 
Leipsic  University,  and  has  written  a  renowned  work 
on  Biblical  Psychology.  From  beginning  to  end  of 
it  he  introduces  as  authority  nothing  but  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  he  adopts  this  threefold  division.  By  the 
spirit  is  meant  the  conscience,  or  that  portion  of 
human  nature  in  which  there  is  a  light  not  of  us, 
although  in  us.  We  have  spoken  of  the  conscience 
as  containing  something  which  is  not  of  us,  and  we 
might  have  used  the  word  spirit  in  the  same  sense. 
The  sold  is  the  link  between  spirit  and  body,  and 
contains  all  the  physical  powers  except  the  con- 
science. That  triple  division  of  man  is  Schoberlein's 
also ;  but  it  would  matter  very  little  whether  it  were 
Schoberlein's  or  Delitzsch's,  if  it  were  not  Biblical. 


DAK  WIN   ON   THE   ORIGIN   OF   CONSCIENCE.      115 

Ulrici,  and  many  others  of  his  school,  who  are 
given  to  the  investigation  of  man  from  the  light  of 
merely  natural  science,  adopt  this  threefold  division 
as  the  outcome  of  their  research  from  the  point  of 
view  of  mere  reason.  In  previous  listening  to  Ulrici 
and  to  Lotze,  we  have  heard  the  former  speak  of  a 
body  of  a  physical  sort ;  then  of  a  third  somewhat, 
or  ethereal  enswathment  of  the  spirit,  a  spiritual 
body ;  and,  lastly,  of  spirit  itself.  Thus  the  three- 
fold division  of  man  is  adopted  not  only  by  the  bio- 
logical, but  by  the  theological  teachers :  by  the 
former  in  the  name  of  exact  research  under  the  mi- 
croscope and  scalpel,  and  by  the  latter  in  the  name 
of  a  careful  dissection  of  Scriptural  texts.  It  is  a 
sign  of  the  times  here  on  the  walls  of  Gottingen, 
when  our  Delitzsch,  who  has  given  himself  to  exe- 
getical  study,  reaches  through  Biblical  proof-texts 
precisely  the  same  idea  of  the  threefold  division  of 
man  at  which  Ulrici  has  arrived  by  the  methods 
of  mere  reason. 

The  English  symposium  has  been  accustomed  to  a 
narrow  view.  Frederick  Harrison  does  not  believe 
that  there  is  in  man  any  spiritual  activity  not  con- 
nected with  changes  in  the  matter  of  his  present 
physical  body.  He  cannot  imagine  it  possible  that 
there  is  in  man  a  soul  having  the  power  of  existence 
apart  from  molecular  change.  Professor  Huxley, 
although  he  will  not  assert  in  definite  terms  as  much 
as  Harrison  has  done,  holds,  nevertheless,  that  we  are 
absolutely  sure  only  of  the  existence  in  ourselves  of 
two  sets  of  phenomena,  one  physical,  and  the  other 


116  HEEEDITY. 

mental  or  moral.  Ho  suspects  that  the  physical  may 
be  shown  to  be  antecedent  to  the  moral,  and  that,  as 
antecedents,  they  are  properly  to  be  regarded  as  the 
cause  of  the  moral.  At  the  last  analysis,  even  Hux- 
ley is  ready  to  attempt  a  physical  explanation  of 
moral  phenomena.  Harrison  objects  to  that.  He 
thinks  the  physical  side  is  the  unimportant  one  in 
man,  if  either  side  is  unimportant ;  but  Huxley 
thinks  the  physical  side  the  important  one.  They 
put  rival  emphasis  on  these  different  sides  of  the 
lower  half  of  man,  and  do  not  appear  to  understand 
how  different  the  outlook  is  the  moment  we  rise  to 
the  German  point  of  view,  and  make  man  to  consist 
of  three  things  instead  of  two. 

Here  we  have  three  wheels,  —  a  large  one,  a  small- 
er within  the  first,  and  a  smallest  within  the  second. 
Suppose  that  they  touch  each  other  by  cogs.  Of 
course,  if  they  all  mash  into  each  other,  when  you 
roll  the  inner  wheel  you  will  roll  the  second,  and  in 
that  act  you  will  roll  the  outer.  In  the  reverse 
direction,  you  may  roll  the  outer,  and  you  will  roll 
the  second,  and  so  the  inner  wheel.  Delitzsch  and 
Schoberlein  and  their  schools  think  of  man  as  spirit, 
soul,  and  body.  The  spirit  is  the  innermost  thing  in 
the  holy  of  holies.  The  soul  is  something  midway 
between  spirit  and  body ;  nevertheless  it  is  subject 
to  influences  from  both  the  soul  and  the  body.  In- 
fluences can  go  from  the  outside  to  the  innermost 
of  man,  and  from  the  innermost  to  the  outermost. 
When  a  man  is  filled  with  lofty  moral  emotion,  we 
find   visible   effects   produced   in    his    countenance. 


DAE  WIN   OX   THE   OE.GEtf   OF   CONSCIENCE.      117 

This  is  a  perfectly  demonstrable  result,  coming  from 
the  activity  of  what  the  Germans  call  the  spirit 
within  the  man.  The  inner  wheel  can  move  the 
wheel  into  which  it  mashes,  and  that  can  move  the 
outer.  It  is  very  evident  that  the  two  inner  wheels 
may  be  taken  out  from  the  outermost  wheel,  and  yet 
continue  their  action  and  interaction.  If  the  second 
wheel  had  the  power  of  assuming  to  itself  an  envel- 
ope, or  outer  wheel,  it  might  in  another  state  of 
existence  do  so,  and  the  fundamental  plan  of  the 
wheels  not  be  changed  at  all.  We  are  more  and  more 
drawn  by  German  biological  and  theological  research 
to  this  threefold  division  of  man  as  explaining  the 
union  between  spirit  and  matter.  We  are  led  to  'the 
idea  that  there  may  be  a  third  somewhat,  or  spiritual 
body  affected  from  without,  and  affected  also  from 
within,  and  acquiring  power  from  its  contact  with 
the  spirit  to  clothe  itself  even  when  the  present  phys- 
ical husk  has  been  dropped  off. 

It  becomes  us  here  to  depend  on  a  wealth  of  exact 
citation,  for  we  must  not  misrepresent  by  the  breadth 
of  a  hair  either  the  German  or  the  English  positions. 
Delitzsch  speaks  with  a  face  full  of  radiance  :  "  The 
power  of  life,  that  inconvenient  and  yet  indispensa- 
ble conception  of  exact  investigation,  is  something 
exalted  above  the  physical  forces  of  attraction  and 
repulsion :  how  much  more,  then,  is  the  conscious 
soul,  and  still  more  the  self-conscious  spirit !  Force, 
life,  soul,  spirit,  form  an  ascending  climax."  (Biblical 
Psychology,  T.  &  T.  Clark's  Foreign  Thcol.  Lib.,  p.  93.) 
"  Samuel,  who  came  up  out  of  Hades,  had,  therefore, 


118  HEKEDITY. 

form  and  clothing  as  lie  had  had  in  this  world  ;  and 
when,  on  the  Mount,  two  men  approached  Jesus,  the 
glorified  appearing  likewise,  and  spoke  with  him,  the 
disciples  immediately  recognized  them  as  Moses  and 
Elias.  They  appeared,  therefore,  in  an  external  form 
corresponding  to  their  temi^oral  history,  and  were, 
therefore,  unmistakable.  But  this  external  form  is 
a  spiritual  one.  By  virtue  of  an  internal  power, 
spirits  give  themselves  external  human  form  when 
they  make  themselves  visible  to  whom  they  will. 
The  external  appearance  is  the  immaterial  product 
of  their  spiritual  nature."     (Ibid,  p.  100.) 

"  Are  we  at  all  to  conclude  thence,  that  the  dead 
even  before  their  resurrection,  and  without  awaken- 
ing of  their  bodies,  are  not  able  to  appear  again? 
The  appearance  of  Moses  and  Samuel  proves  the 
contrary. 

"  We  believe  that  the  spirits  of  the  departed  are 
in  themselves  not  without  a  phenomenal  bodily 
form. 

"  The  soul  of  the  spirit,  we  say  with  Goschel,  after 
the  separation  from  its  body  is  not  wholly  without  a 
body  :  the  inward  body  follows  it. 

"  The  soul  is  the  doxa  of  the  spirit,  immaterial,  but 
similarly  formed  to  the  body,  which  the  spirit  through 
it  ensouls.  It  is,  as  the  outside  of  the  spirit,  so  the 
inside  of  the  body,  which  in  every  change  of  its  ma- 
terial condition  maintains  it  in  identity  with  itself." 
(Ibid,  pp.  502-504.) 

What  am  I  reading  ?  The  book  of  an  erratic  ?  I 
am  citing  the  renowned  work  entitled  "  A  System  of 


DARWIN   ON   THE   ORIGIN    OF    CONSCIENCE.      119 

Biblical  Psychology,"  by  Delitzsch,  since  1867  pro- 
fessor of  theology  at  Leipsic  University ;  and  this 
volume  is  translated  in  the  very  famous  theological 
library  issued  by  the  Clarks  of  Edinburgh.  It  is  a 
book  crowned  and  recrowned  through  edition  after 
edition. 

Huxley  and  Harrison  look  into  the  faces  of  Ulrici 
and  Lotze,  whom  they  recognize  as  men  adequately 
informed  concerning  physical  science,  and  are  amazed 
that  the  broader  German  outlook  leaves  no  opportu- 
nity for  dissent,  even  from  the  side  of  physical  re- 
search. Some  of  us  who  are  not  trained  in  this  phi- 
losophy think  that  by  this  interpretation  of  nature 
and  revelation  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of 
the  same  body  is  imperilled.  But  Delitzsch  speaks 
again,  with  the  Scriptures  open  before  him,  and  with 
reverent  voice  :  "  The  restoration  of  the  human  body 
results  when  God  the  triune  supplies  to  the  soul  from 
the  then  glorified  world  of  nature,  materials  for  the 
new  formation  of  its  body,  similar  to  those  of  which 
its  earthly  body  was  formed,  and  with  which,  when 
the  soul  impresses  upon  them  the  form  of  its  inner 
spiritual  body,  its  spiritual  nature  may  attain  to  full 
manifestation  even  in  the  external  body."  (Ibid,  p. 
537.) 

Delitzsch  cites  Schoberlein,  and  looks  into  the  face 
of  the  great  Gottingen  professor  for  assent  to  these 
propositions.  They  sound  very  strange,  and  we  shall 
have  them  denied  by  Schoberlein  in  the  name  of  the- 
ological research,  if  they  do  really  come  into  conflict 
with  the   accredited   doctrines   of  the   resurrec/.ioru 


120  HEREDITY. 

But,  instead  of  denying  the  position  of  Delitzsch, 
Schoberlein  replies,  with  the  Scriptures  open  before 
him,  "  The  souls  of  the  departed  will  be  clothed 
with  glorified  bodies.  There  will  be  brought  to  the 
soid,  out  of  the  transfigured  world,  materials  analo- 
gous to  the  substance  of  its  previous  body,  and  upon 
these  materials  the  soul  will  then  impress  the  traits 
of  its  germinate  body,  so  as  thus  to  attain  to  full  ob- 
jective expression.  In  the  case  of  those  still  living  at 
the  second  coming  of  Christ,  the  process  will  be  that 
of  a  simple  transformation.  Thus,  even  as  Christ  arose 
with  the  buried  bod}^  so  such  persons  will  then  ap- 
pear in  the  '  same  '  body  which  was  laid  in  the  grave. 
And  this  identity  holds  of  the  whole  essence  of  the 
body,  both  its  primary  features  and  form,  and  also  its 
substance.  As  to  whether  this  identity  of  materials  im- 
plies that  of  the  chemical  elements,  or  even  the  identity 
of  the  ultimate  atoms,  is  a  question  which  loses  all  sig- 
nificance, so  soon  as  we  reflect  that  these  elements 
and  atoms  themselves  are  in  turn  composed  of  invisi- 
ble forces,  and  that,  in  order  to  become  integral  parts 
of  an  organism,  they  must  be  dissolved  back  into 
these  forces,  and  then  arise  out  of  them  under  a  new 
form."  (See  Professor  La  Ceoex,  translation  of  Scho- 
berlein, Meth.  Quar.  Rev.,  October,  1877,  p.  698.) 

Why,  to  these  Germans  matter  is  only  visible 
force !  The  body  itself,  and  all  other  substance  that 
we  call  matter,  are  a  revelation  of  Almighty  God. 
All  matter  as  surely  as  all  finite  mind  originated  in 
him.  As  the  azure  sky,  in  which  we  see  nothing, 
throws  out  from  itself  both  the  cloud  and  the  light- 


DAHWrN   ON   THE   ORIGIN   OF   CONSCIENCE.      121 

ning,  so  the  unseen  universe  gives  rise  to  the  visible 
universe.  We  have  invisible  electricity  in  the  air ; 
we  have  invisible  moisture  there.  The  sky  puts 
forth  a  flat,  and  there  is  a  cloud.  It  puts  forth 
another  fiat,  and  there  is  in  the  cloud  electricity.  So 
I  suppose  Almighty  God  evolves  the  seen  universe 
of  matter  and  the  unseen  of  finite  force  from  himself. 
It  is  not  my  belief  that  every  thing  was  created  from 
nothing,  nor  do  the  authors  of  "  The  Unseen  Uni- 
verse," perhaps  the  most  suggestive  book  lately  pub- 
lished on  these  intricate  themes,  affirm  that.  My 
creed  is  the  reverse  of  pantheistic.  It  is  said  that  an 
eminent  naturalist  of  orthodox  opinions  in  religion 
has  publicly  proclaimed  that  this  platform  teaches 
pantheism.  He  might  as  well  call  Mr.  Phillips  an 
eminent  pro-slavery  orator.  Scholars  in  this  audi- 
ence are  amused  by  such  a  charge.  Whoever  asserts 
the  Divine  Transcendency  above  Nature  side  by  side 
with  the  Divine  Immanency  in  Nature,  and  main- 
tains the  Divine  Personality,  may  emphasize,  as 
Martineau  and  McCosh  and  a  score  of  recent 
writers  have  done,  the  doctrine  of  the  spiritual 
origin  of  force,  and  yet  not  fall  into  pantheism.  If 
any  naturalist  does  not  know  that  fact,  his  blunder- 
ing in  philosophy  is  probably  the  result  of  his  ab- 
sorption in  his  own  specialty.     [Applause.] 

We  find,  however,  that  these  Germans  are  not  to 
be  frightened  by  the  breadth  of  the  Scriptural  out- 
look. Our  listening  to  Schoberlein  ought  to  bo 
intense  after  Delitzsch  has  expressed  agreement  with 
liirn  ;   but  we  find  Dorner  and  Julius  M tiller,   and 


122  HEREDITY. 

Kahnis  and  Luthardt  substantially  agreeing  with 
him.  There  is  more  than  one  hero  in  scholarship 
leaning  with  massive  arm  upon  the  discussions  which 
have  been  put  forward  by  Lotze  and  Schoberlein  and 
Ulrici,  on  these  overawing  themes. 

If  it  be  suggested  that  in  the  glorified  universe 
there  will  be  a  restoration  of  other  beings  beside 
man,  what  shall  we  say  ?  We  are  not  called  on  to 
say  any  thing  in  this  German  symposium,  but  Scho- 
berlein is.  I  am  anxious  to  have  you  push  him  to  the 
wall  if  you  can.  I  am  willing  you  should  ask  him 
definitely  whether  he  thinks  any  other  part  of  the 
present  world  besides  man's  body  will  ever  have  a 
transfiguration  in  the  next  world.  Schoberlein  is 
not  reluctant  to  speak  even  on  that  perplexing  but 
majestic  theme.  "  Christ,  by  the  spiritualization  of 
his  body,  as  taken  out  of  the  bosom  of  nature,  has 
already  consecrated  nature  itself  to  an  ultimate 
transfiguration.  On  the  basis  of  this  beginning, 
therefore,  will  the  Holy  Ghost  bring  forth  out  of  the 
bosom  of  the  perishing  world  a  new  world,  —  not 
another,  but  the  same  world  in  a  transfigured  form, 
even  as  the  raised  body  of  Christ  was  not  another, 
but  the  same  in  a  transfigured  condition.  And 
nature,  as  thus  renewed,  will  exist  under  the  anti- 
thesis of  heaven  and  earth,  a  '  new  heaven  and  a 
new  earth.'  And  the  whole  circle  of  natural  objects 
will  also  come  forth  from  death  as  integral  parts  of 
the  new  eternal  state  of  things." 

Do  you  say  this  is  not  definite  enough,  and  do  you 
wish  more  perfect  information  concerning  the  trans- 


DAEWEN   ON   THE   OEIGEST   OF   CONSCIENCE.      123 

figuring  of  forms  of  life  not  human?  In  a  passage 
vluch  I  have  before  me,  Schuberlein  asserts  as  his 
view  that  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth  will  be 
such  as  Agassiz  anticipated. 

"As  with  nature  in  general,  so  with  natural  ob- 
jects in  particular.  There  will  be  nothing  desert  or 
waste ;  but  the  Divine  breath  will  pervade  all  things. 
Vegetation  will  exist  in  ideal  beauty.  Greed  and 
hostility  will  find  no  place  in  the  animate  realm ;  the 
wolf  will  '  lie  down  with  the  lamb '  in  unbroken 
peace.  In  general  all  primitive  forms  of  existence 
will  re-appear  in  ideal  perfection.  Man  will  enjoy 
nature  through  all  of  his  senses.  The  paradise  that 
existed  before  will  be  restored  after  redemption. 

"  We  are  sown  in  weakness,  but  we  '  rise  in  power.' 
There  will  be  no  alternation  of  work  and  rest,  of 
vigor  and  weariness ;  but  we  shall  subsist  in  ever-full 
vigor  and  enthusiasm. 

"  Whereas  in  this  life  we  consist  of  the  three  ele- 
ments, —  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  —  which  may  even  be 
separated  from  each  other,  in  the  heavenly  life  the 
body  and  soul  will  be  so  pervaded  with  spirit  that 
the  entire  human  being  will  present  but  one  unitary 
spiritual  life. 

"  When  all  is  thus  transfigured,  then  pure  beauty 
will  reign.  Heaven  is  the  true  home  of  beauty. 
For  the  essence  of  beauty  consists  in  this  —  that  the 
life  of  the  soul  beams  perfectly  forth  from  the  body, 
and  that  the  body  thereby  sheds  a  halo  of  glory  back 
upon  the  soul.  All  true  art  is  a  yropiny  after  heaven- 
ly ideals,  and  all  art-works  are  anticipations  of  future 


124  HEREDITY. 

spiritual  realities.  But  in  the  'yon-side'  each  human 
being  will  be  a  living  art-work,  and  the  life  of  com- 
munion among  the  saints  will  be  an  eternal  evolution 
of  holy  art-life. 

"  Wherever  the  soul  may  will  to  be,  there  it  will 
be  able  to  be.  Hence  the  body  will  not  be  a  prison, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  a  free  home,  for  the  soul. 

"  The  body  will  be  the  perfect  servant  of  the  soul : 
hence  it  will  be  capable  of  instantly  following,  and 
keeping  pace  with,  all  the  outgoings  of  imagination 
and  thought.  The  law  of  love,  whereby  we  live  in 
those  on  whom  we  fix  our  heart,  will  be  perfectly  re- 
flected in  the  body.  The  indwelling  of  soul  in  soul 
will  be  also  an  indwelling  of  body  in  body.  And  in 
this  each  will  find  his  due  place  —  so  that,  even  as 
the  church  of  Christ  here  forms  but  one  body  with 
many  members,  thus  also,  hereafter  saved  humanity 
will  form  but  one  organic  body,  whereof  we  shall  all 
be  members,  each  in  his  place.  And  of  this  organic 
whole,  the  head,  the  focal  point,  the  sun,  will  be 
Christ  himself.  As  our  souls  will  eternally  live  of 
his  life,  so  our  bodies  will  eternally  shine  in  the  radi- 
ance of  his  glorified  body. 

"  Our  bodies  are  not  mere  caducous  husks,  to  be 
thrown  off  when  the  soul  is  ripe.  But  nature  and 
the  kingdom  of  God,  the  rational  soul  and  the  hu- 
man body,  belong  normally  and  essentially  together. 
When  the  one  is  transfigured,  the  other  is  transfig- 
ured. And  when,  at  the  goal  of  moral  development, 
they  are  risen  to  integral  unity,  then  they  persist, 
through  eternity,  as  intimately  united  as  form  and 
substance,  light  and  color." 


DARWIN   ON    THE   ORIGIN   OF   CONSCIENCE.      125 

Frederick  Harrison  here  has  talked  of  the  eternity 
of  the  tabor.  Adopting  the  principles  of  the  Nirvana 
of  the  Brahmins,  he  has  affirmed  that  an  eternity  of 
conscious  self-existence  can  be  only  torture.  "A 
mystical  and  inane  ecstasy,"  he  says,  "  is  an  appropri- 
ate ideal  for  a  paradise  of  negations,  and  this  is  the 
orthodox  view ;  but  it  is  not  a  high  view."  (Nine- 
teenth Century,  October,  1877.) 

But  Schoberlein,  unabashed  in  the  company  of 
German  learning,  replies,  "When  the  soul  has 
reached  its  perfection  in  God  it  will  need  at  once  to 
enter  upon  a  course  of  untrammelled  holy  activity, 
even  as  God,  whose  image  it  is,  himself  eternally 
'  works ; '  and  to  this  creatural  need  of  a  field  for 
work,  the  world  of  nature  offers  the  requisite  scope." 

Our  disputants  having  paced  through  the  whole 
night,  the  dawn  now  begins  to  cast  its  radiance  on  the 
wall  of  Gottingen.  Above  the  low  German  mead- 
ows and  in  the  trench  at  the  foot  of  the  wall  lies  a 
tracer}-  of  morning  vapor.  The  summit  of  the  wall 
is  in  sunlight.  The  lark  is  rising  out  of  the  fields. 
Our  spirits  are  carried  up  by  its  flight  to  the  inquiry 
whether  we  will  adopt  a  higher  or  a  lower  philosophy, 
that  is,  wideness  or  narrowness  of  outlook.  This 
comes  to  be  the  final  question  between  the  English 
and  the  German  learned  men.  All  they  in  this  group 
who  will  not  use  the  higher  and  the  wider  outlook 
which  divides  man  in  a  threefold  way  agree  to  take 
physically  a  position  symbolizing  their  attitude  spir- 
itually. Frederick  Harrison  walks  down  into  the 
trench  under  the  fog.     He  is  a  positivist.     lie  be- 


126  HEREDITY. 

lieves  in  what  he  can  touch.  The  only  immortality 
for  him  is  posthumous  influence.  But  his  doubt 
results  from  his  narrowness  of  outlook.  Lon<?  a^o 
those  who  sit  half  way  up  the  slope  leading  to  the 
wall  from  the  trench  have  outgrown  that  narrowness. 
They  do  not  as  yet  divide  man  in  a  threefold  way, 
but  think  that  there  are  body  and  soul  in  man,  and 
so  are  delivered  from  that  style  of  mental  unrest 
into  the  mist  of  which  even  William  Greg  must  dip, 
as  he  takes  his  position.  He  knows  not  what  to  be- 
lieve. He  is  now  in  the  vapor,  and  now  in  the  sun- 
light. Professor  Huxley  must  walk  down  too  ;  and, 
although  the  vapor  will  not  wreathe  his  forehead,  it 
will  cover  his  feet,  for  the  positivist  and  the  material- 
istic evolutionist  do  not  stand  far  apart.  But  Lord 
Blachford,  Lord  Selborne,  Mr.  Hutton,  Canon  Barry, 
and  all  the  rest  of  this  English  group,  three  of  them 
only  excepted,  stand  here  on  the  summit  of  the  wall, 
with  Lotze  and  Schoberlein  and  Ulrici  and  the  other 
German  scholars.  They  believe  that  man  is  three- 
fold, and  their  breadth  of  outlook  delivers  them 
from  the  obscuring  power  of  the  vapor  which  broods 
only  over  the  trenches.  The  lark  continues  to  sing. 
There  comes  falling  through  the  ether  a  divine 
voice :  Narrowness  is  the  mother  of  unbelief.  Ob- 
tain a  broad  outlook,  would  you  agree  with  God 
in  your  philosophy,  and  be  able  to  transmit  God's 
own  thought  into  life.     [Applause.] 


DARWIN   ON   THE   ORIGIN   OF   CONSCIENCE.      127 


THE   LECTURE. 

It  has  been  well  said  that  the  question  as  to  the 
origin  of  conscience  has  the  same  relation  to  modern 
philosophical  discussion  of  religious  truths  that  Bce- 
otia  had  to  the  geography  of  Greece.  That  province 
was  the  key  to  the  whole  land.  It  became,  conse^ 
quently,  the  very  dancing-plot  of  Mars.  "We  have 
had  many  a  theory  put  to  such  straits  in  explaining 
the  single  syllable  ought,  as  to  assert  with  Bentham 
that,  "if  the  use  of  the  word  is  admissible  at  all,  it 
ought  to  be  banished  from  the  vocabulary  of  morals." 
(Deontology,  i.  p.  32.)  The  distinction  between  the 
desirable  and  the  dutiful  is  a  fact,  however.  The 
desirable  is  merely  the  optional :  the  dutiful  is  the 
imperative.  The  most  characteristic  element  in  the 
latter  can  never  be  explained  solely  by  the  former. 
The  theories  which  derive  the  dutiful  from  the  de- 
sirable have,  in  all  ages,  had  insuperable  difficulties 
in  discovering  a  basis  for  moral  obligation.  The 
upholders  of  utilitarianism  have  to  this  hour  reached 
no  real  unanimity  on  this  central  point.  Bentham 
went  so  far  as  to  deny  the  existence  of  duty.  "  It  is, 
in  fact,  very  idle  to  talk  about  duties ;  the  word  it- 
self has  in  it  something  disagreeable  and  repulsive." 
(Ibid,  p.  10.)  The  angular,  sharp,  erratic  Schopen- 
hauer suggests  that  conscience  is  composed  of  five 
elements,  —  fear  of  man,  superstition,  prejudice,  van- 
ity, and  custom.  (Grund  Probleme  der  Etlilk,  p. 
396.)  Even  David  Hume,  however,  could  say  that 
**  those  who  have  denied  the  reality  of  moral  distinc- 


128  HEREDITY. 

tions  are  to  be  ranked  among  the  disingenuous  dispu- 
tants ;  nor  is  it  conceivable  that  any  human  creature 
could  ever  seriously  believe  that  all  characters  and 
actions  were  alike  entitled  to  the  affection  and  re- 
gard of  every  one."  {Inquiry  concerning  the  Prin- 
ciples of  Morals,  Essays,  vol.  ii.  p.  223.)  Profit  a 
man  may  disdain,  but  duty  has  a  commanding  pres- 
ence, We  can  refuse  to  do  our  duty,  but  we  are 
unable  to  deny  its  authority  over  us  in  right.  De 
jure,  conscience  always  rules,  although  de  facto  it 
may  not.  All  languages  recognize  the  distinction 
between  profit  and  duty,  the  desirable  and  the  duti- 
ful, mere  expediency  and  the  right.  These  great 
phenomena  in  language  must  have  a  natural  cause. 
They  are  facts.  They  are  hard,  unmistakable,  endur- 
ing circumstances  in  human  experience.  The  ques- 
tion as  to  the  origin  of  conscience  is  not  only  a  vastly 
more  important  one  than  the  inquiry  concerning  the 
origin  of  species,  but  it  is  one  that  can  be  investi- 
gated by  the  scientific  method  almost  as  readily.  I 
enter  on  the  dancing-plot  of  Mars  he*re  for  the  first 
time.  Many  of  you  may  have  thought  that  I  have 
evaded  the  topic  of  the  origin  of  conscience.  I  post- 
poned it,  in  order  that  I  might  bear  the  whole  brunt 
of  its  onset,  after  discussing  the  moral  sense  in  de- 
tail. Having  shown  what  conscience  is,  I  now,  with 
some  profit,  I  hope,  may  raise  the  question,  How  did 
it  originate  ? 

It  is  evident  that  Darwin's  hypothesis  of  heredi- 
tary descent,  or  pangenesis,  requires  in  the  gem- 
mules,  innate   powers   or  affinities   that  amount  to 


DARWIN   ON   THE  ORIGIN   OF   CONSCIENCE.     120 

as  great  a  mystery  as  what  we  call  life.  Even  on 
his  theory,  however,  conscience  must  have  been  in- 
volved in  the  original  capacities  of  the  first  living 
matter  out  of  which,  according  to  Darwinism,  all 
animal  forms  have  been  evolved.  You  may  be  an 
evolutionist  of  an  extreme  type,  —  I  will  not  say  of 
the  extremest  or  materialistic  sort,  —  and  yet  you 
may  hold  that  conscience  is  in  the  constitution  drawn 
up  in  the  cabin  of  "  The  Mayflower  "  before  the  ship 
landed ;  and  I,  for  one,  shall  have  no  great  quarrel 
with  you,  if  that  is  the  form  of  your  evolutionistic 
philosophy.  But  Darwin  has  put  forth  a  special  the- 
ory of  conscience.  He  has  endeavored  to  show  how 
the  moral  sense;  as  it  exists  in  man,  may  have  been 
developed  exclusively  from  the  faculties  possessed  by 
animals.  He  makes  conscience  only  another  name 
for  the  operation  of  the  social  instincts  conjoined 
with  the  intellectual  powers. 

Whenever  an  instinct  is  not  satisfied,  a  feeling  of 
unrest  arises.  If,  for  instance,  the  desire  for  food  is 
not  satisfied,  we  are  left  in  unrest.  Every  instinct 
has  a  pleasure  connected  with  its  gratification,  and  a 
pain  in  the  absence  of  its  proper  food.  Just  so  the 
social  instincts  have  pain  behind  them  when  they  are 
not  gratified.  Darwin's  central  proposition  in  his 
discussion  of  the  moral  sense  (Descent  of  3fan,  vol.  i. 
chap,  iii.)  is,  that  he  thinks  it  "  in  a  high  degree 
probable  that  any  animal  whatever,  endowed  with 
well-marked  social  instincts,  would  inevitably  acquire 
a  moral  sense  or  conscience  as  soon  as  its  intellectual 
powers  had  become  as  well  developed,  or  nearly  as 


130  HEEED1TY. 

well  developed,  as  in  man."  Thus  Darwin  derives 
conscience  from  the  combined  operation  of  the  social 
instincts  and  of  the  intellectual  faculties.  He  makes 
remorse  of  conscience  to  be  only  the  feeling  of  dis- 
satisfaction a  man  has  when  the  social  instincts  are 
not  satisfied.  He  would  have  us  explain  the  feeling 
that  we  are  to  blame,  by  the  fact  that  we  are  not 
satisfied  in  our  social  instincts. 

What  are  some  of  the  more  important  objections 
to  Darwin's  theory  of  the  origin  of  conscience  ? 

1.  Darwin  teaches  that  "man  comes  to  feel,  through 
habit,  that  it  is  best  for  him  to  obey  his  more  persist- 
ent instincts."  But  in  the  same  connection  he  affirms 
that  "  the  wish  for  another  man's  property  is  perhaps 
as  persistent  a  desire  as  any  that  can  be  named." 
(Descent  of  Man,  American  edition,  vol.  i.  pp.  88,  89.) 
Two  pages  before  the  first  of  these  sentences,  I  find 
the  second  one.  The  context  shows  that  instinct  and 
desire  are  used  here  as  synonymes.  Theft  and  rob- 
bery, therefore,  if  we  are  to  be  logical,  are  to  be 
justified  on  the  basis  of  Darwin's  theory.  To  fol- 
low conscience  is  to  obey  our  more  persistent  in- 
stincts ;  but  the  wish  for  another  man's  property  is 
perhaps  as  persistent  an  instinct  as  any  that  can 
be  named.  As  Professor  Calderwood  of  Edinburgh 
University  has  said :  "  Neither  a  good  morality  nor 
a  doctrine  of  personal  obligation  can  rest  on  this 
basis."     (Handbook  of  Moral  Philosophy,  p.  147.) 

The  strength  of  an  instinct  depends  on  two  things, 
—  the  persistency  of  the  desire  it  represents,  and  the 
vividness  with  which  we  recall  the  pains  or  pleas- 


DARWIN   ON   THE   ORIGIN   OF   CONSCIENCE.      131 

ures  arising  from  the  desire.  Hunger,  for  instance, 
is  an  imperative  desire  ;  but,  when  satisfied,  its  pains 
cannot  easily  be  recalled  in  memory.  It  has  often 
been  remarked,  that  our  painful  sensations  arc  repro- 
duced in  imagination  less  easily  than  our  pleasurable. 
Now,  this  desire  for  another  man's  property,  Darwin 
affirms,  has  in  unsurpassed  fulness  the  first  part  of 
strength ;  namely,  the  persistence  of  the  desire.  It 
is,  he  says,  "perhaps  as  persistent  a  desire  as  any 
that  can  be  named."  But  there  is  another  part  of  its 
strength,  and  that  is  the  vividness  with  which  we 
can  recall  the  pains  or  pleasures  arising  from  it. 
Darwin  affirms,  concerning  that  part  of  its  power, 
only  that  "  the  satisfaction  of  actual  possession  is 
generally  a  weaker  feeling  than  the  desire  of  posses- 
sion." He  thus  implicitly  admits  that  sometimes  it 
is  not  a  weaker  feeling  than  the  desire.  Well,  then, 
if  sometimes  it  is  not  a  weaker  feeling  than  the  desire, 
of  course  both  parts  of  the  strength  sometimes  belong 
to  this  impulse.  If,  therefore,  the  most  persistent 
and  strong  instinct  ought  to  be  followed,  as  Darwin 
says,  then  sometimes  our  desire  for  another  man's 
propert}r  ought  to  be  followed.  Darwin  explicitly 
teaches  that  man  comes  to  feel,  through  acquired 
and  perhaps  inherited  habit,  that  it  is  best  for  him 
to  obey  his  most  persistent  instincts.  "  The  imperious 
word  '  ought '  seems  merely  to  imply  the  consciousness  of 
the  existence  of  a  persistent  instinct.  We  hardly  use 
the  word  '  ought'  in  a  metaphorical  sense  when  we  say 
hounds  ought  to  hunt,  pointers  ought  to  point,  and 
retrievers  to  retrieve  their  game."     (Ibid,  p.  88.) 


132  HEREDITY. 

Here,  therefore,  is  an  instructive  example  of  a 
lack  of  metaphysical  and  philosophical  training  in  a 
renowned  naturalist.  Again  and  again  this  fallacy 
has  been  pointed  out.  It  is  not  brought  forward  here 
to-day  for  the  first  time.  Many  discussions  have 
exhibited  just  this  strange  bewilderment  in  Darwin's 
reasoning.  Undoubtedly  this  writer  is  an  expert  in 
observation.  Darwin  has  a  massive  head  in  what 
the  books  call  the  observing  faculties,  but  not  a  very 
massive  one  in  the  philosophical  faculties.  I  am 
using  for  the  brain  only  that  outline  chart  which 
Professor  Ferrier's  latest  researches  seem  to  justify. 
Darwin's  books,  however,  are  the  best  map  of  his 
own  spirit ;  perfectly  honest,  candid  as  the  noon,  a 
mass  of  facts  which  are  a  mine  for  this  whole  gener- 
ation, and  for  all  generations  to  come,  within  the 
field  of  biological  research,  and  yet  not  remarkable 
for  the  philosophical  traits  prominent  in  the  writings 
of  a  Hamilton,  a  Kant,  or  an  Aristotle. 

Read  Von  Hartmann's  late  criticisms  on  the  True 
and  the  False  in  Darwinism.  (Journal  of  Specula- 
tive Philosophy,  October,  1877,  and  January,  1878.) 
Read  Virchow's  recent  reply  to  Hiickel :  "  Only 
ten  years  ago,  when  a  skull  was  found,  perhaps 
in  peat  or  in  lake  dwellings,  or  in  some  old  cave, 
it  was  believed  that  wonderful  marks  of  a  wild 
and  quite  undeveloped  state  were  seen  in  it.  In- 
deed, we  were  then  scenting  monkey  air.  But  this 
has  died  out  more  and  more.  The  old  troglodytes, 
lake  inhabitants,  and  peat  people  turn  out  to  be 
quite   a   respectable   society.     They  have  heads  of 


DARWIN   ON   THE   ORIGIN   OF   CONSCIENCE.      133 

such  a  size,  that  many  a  person  living  would  feel 
happy  to  possess  one  like  them.  .  .  .  On  the  whole, 
we  must  really  acknowledge  that  all  fossil  type  of 
a  lower  human  development  is  absolutely  wanting. 
Indeed,  if  we  take  the  total  of  all  fossil  men  that 
have  been  found  hitherto,  and  compare  them  with 
what  the  present  offers,  then  we  can  maintain  with 
certainty,  that,  amongst  the  present  generation,  there 
is  a  much  larger  number  of  relatively  low-type  indi- 
viduals than  amongst  the  fossils  hitherto  known.  .  .  . 
As  a  fact,  we  must  positively  acknowledge  that  there 
is  always  a  sharp  limit  between  man  and  the  ape. 
We  cannot  teach,  we  cannot  designate  it  as  a  revelation 
of  science,  that  man  descends  from  the  ape,  or  from 
any  other  animal.''''  (Nature,  Dec.  6,  1877,  pp.  112, 
113.) 

2.  If  you  will  allow  me  to  affirm  that  Darwin 
teaches,  at  the  outset  of  his  discussion  of  the  moral 
sense,  propositions  that  would  undermine  the  whole 
doctrine  of  personal  obligation,  I  shall  have  said 
enough  to  make  you  cautious  in  adopting  that  theory 
of  the  origin  of  conscience. 

3.  In  Darwin's  attempt  to  trace  the  development 
of  conscience  from  purely  animal  instincts,  ideas  of 
morality  drawn  from  other  sources  slip  into  the  argu- 
ment. (See  this  criticism  developed  in  Newman 
Smyth's  Religious  Feeling,  and  in  St.  George  Mi- 
VARt's  Genesis  of  Species,  and  in  various  other 
writers.) 

The  atmosphere  in  which  he  conducts  his  experi- 
ment is  full  of  germs  of  the  moral  sense.     It  has  been 


134  HEREDITY. 

well  said  that  they  who  try  to  prove  spontaneous 
generation  to  be  a  fact  usually  perform  their  experi- 
ments in  an  atmosphere  saturated  with  the  germs 
which  they  wish  to  develop. 

Darwin  calls  to  his  aid,  in  explaining  the  origin  of 
the  moral  sense,  a  great  number  of  floating  moral 
germs.  I  have  singled  out  twelve  of  these,  and  hard- 
ly need  do  more  than  name  them  in  his  language :  — 

(1)  "  Highly  developed  mental  faculties."  That 
word  mental  is  very  vague.  If  by  mind  you  mean 
the  whole  spiritual  equipment  of  man,  as  you  some- 
times do,  it  includes  moral  perception ;  and  so  surrep- 
titious^, or  at  least  unobserved,  comes  in  the  very 
idea  of  which  Darwin  would  explain  the  origin. 

(2)  "  The  feeling  of  dissatisfaction."  That  is  an- 
other vague  phrase.  It  might  mean  moral  dissatis- 
faction. 

(3)  "  The  power  of  language." 

(4)  "  The  idea  of  the  good  of  the  community." 
A  very  vague  phrase  that  never  would  pass  without 
being  challenged  under  the  microscope  of  metaphysi- 
cal research. 

(5)  "  The  power  of  public  opinion." 

(6)  "  Obedience  to  the  wishes  and  judgments  of 
the  community." 

(7)  "  Feelings  of  love  and  sympathy."  These 
often  mean  much  more  than  merely  social  instincts. 

(8)  "  Power  of  self-command."  Of  course  there 
inheres  in  the  very  idea  of  self-command  the  idea 
of  a  distinction  between  motives.  A  clear  choice 
among  motives  involves  moral  perception  of  the  dif- 


DARWIN   ON   THE   ORIGIN   OF   CONSCIENCE.      135 

ferent  character  of  motives,  as  good  and  bad ;  and 
so,  under  that  phrase,  "power  of  self-command,"  may 
easily  come  in  the  very  idea  of  which  the  origin  is  to 
be  explained. 

(9)  "  Appreciation  of  the  justice  of  the  judgments 
of  his  fellow-men."  There  Darwin  has  the  great 
word  "  justice,"  but  all  languages  recognize  a  dis- 
tinction between  the  just  and  the  merely  expedient. 
A  perception  of  what  is  just  in  motives  is  an  act  of 
conscience.  Darwin  allows  this  atmospheric  germ  to 
drift  into  his  experiment.  Appreciation  of  justice ! 
Why,  that  is  conscience,  and  that  is  the  very  thing 
you  are  about  to  develop  here  by  spontaneous  gener- 
ation. 

(10)  "  Appreciation  of  justice,  independently  of 
any  pleasure  or  pain  felt  at  the  moment."  All  these 
phrases  are  Darwin's.  This  last  is  not  a  poor  de- 
scription of  one  of  the  fundamental  activities  of  con- 
science. Justice  cannot  be  perceived  at  all  without 
the  power  of  perceiving  the  difference  between  right 
and  wrong  ;  and  to  perceive  that,  without  any  regard 
to  the  pleasure  or  pain  felt  at  the  moment,  is  the  key 
of  what  we  call  conscience. 

(11)  "Avoidance  of  the  reprobation  of  the  one 
or  many  gods "  in  whom  the  individual  believes. 
The  sense  of  the  Divine  comes  to  us  from  con- 
science ;  and  that  germ  is  more  dangerous  than  any 
of  the  ten  that  have  preceded  it.  But  here  comes 
one  yet  more  dangerous. 

(11)  "  The  fear  of  Divine  punishment." 

Surely,  if  you  will  give  me   all  these  germs,  if 


136  HEREDITY. 

you  will  let  them  drift  into  my  bottle  in  which  I  am 
required  to  produce,  by  spontaneous  generation,  con- 
science, I  shall  have  no  trouble  with  that  experiment. 
[Applause.] 

These  are  phrases  out  of  Darwin's  famous  chapter. 
If,  by  such  an  amount  of  carelessness  in  his  experi- 
ment, you  are  not  thrown  into  scientific  unrest  as  to 
Darwin's  theory  concerning  the  origin  of  conscience, 
I  shall  say  that  you  are  accustomed  to  a  loose  appli- 
cation of  the  scientific  method,  worse  than  I  have 
been  taught,  even  under  the  mediaeval  and  mossy 
instruction  of  Andover. 

4.  What  ancestors  do  not  possess,  offspring  cannot 
inherit. 

5.  The  moral  sense,  therefore,  cannot  be  inherited 
from  a  non-moral  source. 

From  my  point  of  view  these  two  propositions  are 
the  most  important  in  the  whole  range  of  investiga- 
tion as  to  the  origin  of  conscience.  Our  only  safety 
in  reasoning  is  to  begin  always  with  absolutely  unde- 
niable propositions,  and  then  to  make  only  such 
inferences  from  them  as  are  axiomatically  clear.  I 
think  these  two  propositions  are  clear;  and  from 
them  may  be  made  inferences  that  undermine  the 
foundations  of  every  merely  derivative  theory  of  the 
origin  of  the  moral  sense.  Darwin's  hypothesis 
assumes  that  the  moral  sense  is  inherited  from  a  non- 
moral  source.  His  scheme  of  thought,  therefore, 
makes  the  stream  rise  higher  than  its  fountain,  or 
involves  the  assertion  that  there  can  be  an  event 
without  a  sufficient  cause. 


DARWIN   ON   THE   ORIGIN   OF   CONSCIENCE.      137 

6.  According  to  Darwin's  theory,  pain  comes  to 
conscience  only  when  some  persistent  instinct  is  left 
unsatisfied,  and  therefore  the  essence  of  all  conscien- 
tious action  is  simply  the  pleasurable.  In  natures 
badly  organized,  the  vicious  is  often  demanded  by  the 
most  persistent  instincts.  The  vicious,  therefore,  in 
these  natures,  is  the  conscientious  in  Darwin's  sense ; 
but  this  reduces  the  theory  to  absurdity. 

7.  It  follows  from  Darwin's  definition,  that  the 
pleasurable,  on  the  whole,  is  that  winch  conscience 
justifies.  Darwin's  theory  makes  no  adequate  dis- 
tinction between  the  pleasurable,  which  is  always 
only  the  optional,  and  the  dutiful,  which  is  always 
the  imperative ;  it  does  not  explain  the  commanding 
force  of  the  word  "  ought ;  "  it  does  not  account  for 
the  axiom,  '■'-Fiat  justitia  mat  ccelum"  let  justice  be 
done,  though  the  heavens  fall. 

8.  Darwin  himself  concedes  that  his  chief  source 
of  doubt  with  respect  to  his  own  theory  of  con- 
science is  that  senseless  customs,  superstitions  and 
tastes,  such  as  the  horror  of  the  Hindoo  for  unclean 
food,  ought,  on  his  principle,  to  be  transmitted,  and 
they  are  not. 

One  rule  of  science  is  to  look  into  the  misty  places, 
which  a  theory  will  not  explain,  for  new  light. 
Wherever  there  are  unexplored  remainders  we  are 
likely  to  find  new  truths.  Now,  Darwin  confesses 
that  this  vast  range  of  senseless  customs,  supersti- 
tions and  tastes,  is  not  under  the  law  of  inheritance, 
and  ought  to  be  if  his  theory  is  correct.  What  if  a 
man  has  been  made  so  much  better  than  a  clod,  that 


138  HEREDITY. 

a  good  angel,  stepping  on  him,  leaves  an  imprint  that 
is  not  easily  washed  out ;  and  a  bad  angel,  leaving  a 
bad  imprint  there,  soon  finds  that  the  plan  of  human 
nature  has  re-acted  against  the  impression  thus  made, 
and  that  a  sense  of  justice  has  wiped  out,  as  with  a 
sweeping  billow,  the  track  of  his  hoof,  and  left  the 
shore  clean  as  God  made  it?  You  would  judge,  in 
that  case,  that  the  shape  of  the  shore  had  been  deter- 
mined by  some  other  power  than  the  impact  either 
of  good  feet  or  of  split  hoofs.  There  is  a  plan  in  the 
sands.  They  are  not  sands ;  they  are  a  soul.  [Ap- 
plause.] 


VI. 

UNLIKENESS  IN  OEGANISMS. 


THE  NINETY-SIXTH  LECTURE     IN    THE     BOSTOH 

MONDAY  LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED   IN 

TBEMONT   TEMPLE,   JAN.    14. 


Deum  te  igitur  scito  esse:  siquidem  Deus  est,  qui  viget,  qm 
sentit,  qui  meminit,  qui  providet,  qui  tam  regit,  et  nioderatur,  et 
movet  id  corpus,  cui  propositus  est,  quam  hunc  mundum  ille 
princeps  Deus:  et  ut  mundum  ex  quadam  parte  mortalem  ipse 
Deus  seternus,  sic  fragile  corpus  animus  sempiternus  movet.  — 
Cicero:  Somyi.  Scipionis. 


Meus  agitat  molem,  et  magno   ae   corpora  miscet.  —  Virgil : 
Mn.  vi.  727. 


VI. 

WHAT  CAUSES   UNLIKENESS  IN 
ORGANISMS  ? 

PKELUDE   OX   CURRENT   EVENTS. 

Shall  the  nation  pay  its  debts,  or  swindle  its 
creditors?  Congress  meets  this  morning;  and  the 
chief  question  before  it  is  national  honesty  or  nation- 
al fraud.  Even  if  there  were  an  international  Con- 
gress, it  would  not  have  power  to  make  ninetj^-two 
cents  in  silver  equal  to  an  hundred  in  gold,  unless 
all  the  boards  of  trade  of  the  commercial  cities  and 
every  man  who  sells  bullion  in  competition  with  coin 
were  to  agree  also  to  make  a  fraction  of  a  dollar 
equal  to  the  whole.  No  one  Congress,  no  one  mod- 
ern nation,  can  fix  the  relative  value  of  silver  and 
gold  coins.  What  Congress  ought  to  do  is  an  im- 
portant question,  but  a  necessary  previous  inquiry  is 
whether  it  can  do  any  thing  effective  for  the  relief 
of  the  debtor  class.  A  man  who  has  honest  debts 
has  commonly  been  in  need  of  paying  them.  Who 
has  power  to  reverse  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  ? 
Unless  we  can  repeal  the  multiplication-table,  we  can- 
not take  the  burden  off  the  debtor  class. 

141 


142  HEREDITY. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  there  is  some  force  in  the 
popular  cry  that  there  ought  not  to  be  one  kind  of 
money  for  bondholders,  and  another  for  the  masses. 
What  is  the  reply  to  that  insidious  plea  of  dema- 
gogues ? 

The  government  promised  to  pay  "  in  coin  "  the 
principal  and  interest  of  money  lent  to  it  in  the  war 
for  the  protection  of  the  nation.  Public  explana- 
tions made  by  the  government  interpreted  the  phrase 
"  in  coin  "  as  meaning  "  in  gold."  Of  course  "  coin  " 
could  not  mean  coin  of  depreciated  value,  and  worth 
only  ninety  cents  on  a  dollar.  The  whole  people, 
including  the  debtor  class  and  the  workingmen, 
authorized  through  their  representatives  the  promise 
to  pay  in  coin.  The  pledge  of  the  nation  was  made, 
not  only  to  the  wealthy  citizens,  but  to  foreign  capi- 
talists, and  in  many  cases  to  those  of  moderate  means 
in  the  American  population.  The  war  was  for  the 
benefit  of  every  class,  including  the  poor  widow,  who, 
out  of  her  hoard,  gave  a  little  to  the  purchase  of 
government  bonds,  as  well  as  the  capitalist,  whose 
assistance  of  the  government  involved  no  self-denial. 
The  workingman  who  purchased  government  bonds 
in  any  degree  was  one  of  the  persons  to  whom  the 
public  faith  was  plighted.  The  war,  in  which  the 
borrowed  money  was  spent,  was  for  the  benefit  of 
every  class  between  the  Lakes  and  the  Gulf  and  the 
two  oceans.  The  expenditure  was  pre-eminently  for 
the  good  of  those  who  now  call  themselves  the  debt- 
or class  by  eminence.  If,  therefore,  we  are  to  look 
upon   the   promise   of  the   nation   as   a  serious  one 


UNLIKENESS   IN   ORGANISMS.  143 

when  made  in  the  highest  places,  there  is  nothing 
short  of  this  conclusion  before  us,  namely,  that  to 
break  the  nation's  pledge  to  pay  its  debts  in  coin  of 
full  value  is  national  infamy.  It  is  national  gam- 
bling, national  cheating,  national  robbery.  It  is 
deliberate  national  injustice,  not  only  to  the  rich, 
but  to  the  poor.     [Applause.] 

Why  should  the  President  veto  the  silver  bill? 
Because  it  contains  elements  of  cool,  treacherous 
unfairness,  not  merely  to  the  capitalists  of  Europe 
from  whom  we  borrowed,  not  only  to  the  wealthy 
citizens  here  who  assisted  us  in  our  necessities,  but 
also  to  a  great  mass  of  men  of  moderate  means  who 
have  the  government  promises  to  pay  in  coin. 
Bondholders  are  not  all  capitalists.  Many  of  them 
are  persons  of  small  incomes.  In  these  days  when 
so  many  other  forms  of  investing  money  are  unsafe, 
it  will  not  do  to  let  it  be  understood  that  govern- 
ment bonds  mean  less  in  fact  than  in  promise. 

If  legislation  in  one  country  ascribes  to  gold  and 
silver  coins  a  relative  value  as  legal  tender,  material- 
ly different  from  the  relative  value  of  gold  and  sil- 
ver bullion,  of  course  in  that  country  such  legislation 
will  succeed  only  in  compelling  the  acceptance  of 
the  over-valued  metal  in  debts  and  contracts.  The 
law  will  not  change  the  commercial  value  of  coins. 

A  level  of  values  throughout  the  civilized  nations 
must  ultimately  be  reached  under  the  natural  law  of 
supply  and  demand.  In  the  country  that  has  over- 
valued silver  coins,  there  will  be  an  excessive  supply 
of  them  from  other  parts  of  the  world,  provided  the 


144  HEREDITY. 

difference  of  their  value  and  that  of  gold  coins  is 
eight  or  ten  per  cent,  as  it  would  be  in  the  present 
case.  There  will,  therefore,  exist,  in  the  country 
over-valuing  silver,  a  surplus  of  silver  over  other 
coins.  Thus  depreciation  will  occur  there  in  part, 
and  appreciation  will  occur  in  the  exporting  country, 
and  so  a  level  will  be  produced. 

Massachusetts  Bay  cannot  agree  with  Liverpool 
harbor  how  high  the  tides  shall  rise.  No  admiral  has 
power  over  the  tides.  It  would  not  be  possible  for 
London,  Paris,  Berlin,  St.  Petersburg,  New  York,  and 
Washington  together  to  fix  a  firm  standard  of  the 
relative  value  of  gold  and  silver.  The  great  tides  in 
commerce  depend  on  quite  other  forces  than  national 
legislation.  We  cannot  prevent  water  or  money  from 
running  down  hill.  There  will  be  a  level  reached 
in  the  commercial  atmosphere.  Guyot  says  that  the 
great  art  of  constructing  weather-maps  is  to  notice 
how  the  air  flows  down  a  slope.  At  the  same  instant 
of  actual  time  the  height  of  the  barometer  is  deter- 
mined all  across  this  continent.  Thus  it  is  known 
where  the  hills  and  valleys  are  in  the  atmospheric 
landscape,  so  to  speak.  Where  the  barometer  is 
high,  the  air  is  heavy  i  the  opposite  condition  exists 
where  the  barometer  is  low ;  and  so  a  certain  slope 
may  be  discovered  in  the  atmosphere.  Down  that 
slope  the  wind  will  run.  There  will  be  a  level  pro- 
duced, and  so  the  course  of  storms  can  be  predicted. 
Now,  just  that  law  prevails  in  the  commercial  atmos- 
phere ;  this  thing  of  mystery  and  storms  and  the 
lightnings  of  panics  is  all  as  explicable  as  our  weath- 


UNLIKEXESS   IX   ORGANISMS.  145 

er,  if  only  you  remember  the  law  that  air  and  water 
and  money  must  run  down  hill.  If  the  air  above 
Ohio  and  Indiana,  if  the  air  above  that  whole  sec- 
tion of  our  country  which  has  defended  our  inflated 
currency,  were  to  pass  a  resolution  that  no  currents 
shall  flow  down  its  slopes,  the  effect  would  be  much 
the  same  as  if  America  were  to  pass  a  law  that  no 
currents  should  flow  down  its  slopes  towards  London 
and  Berlin  in  the  commercial  atmosphere.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

This  matter  is  out  of  the  power  of  Congress ;  but 
one  thing  is  not  out  of  the  power  of  our  national 
legislators.  They  can  disgrace  us.  They  can  repu- 
diate their  promises,  not  as  a  whole,  but  ten  per  cent, 
or  eight  per  cent,  of  them.  They  can  refuse  to  pay 
in  gold  the  principal  and  interest  of  government 
bonds.  They  have  done  so  already.  Lord  Beacons- 
field  said  once  of  his  opponents  that  their  chief  busi- 
ness was  blundering  and  plundering.  What  will  be 
the  effect,  if  Congressional  repudiation  succeeds  ? 

Let  the  financial  promises  of  the  nation  be  dis- 
honored, let  ninety  cents  be  made  legal  tender  in 
place  of  a  dollar  in  gold,  and  we  shall  find  American 
bonds  returned  from  Europe.  Capitalists  there 
would  certainly  refuse  to  take  any  more  very  sud- 
denly. We  know  what  the  reputation  of  American 
banking  is,  on  the  whole.  There  are  illustrious  ex- 
ceptions. But  the  saddest  hour  I  had  abroad  was 
when  I  sat  down  on  the  steps  of  the  Bank  of  Eng- 
land, after  having  twice  lost  money  by  American 
banking-houses,  and  wrote  to  my  friends  to  send  me 


146  HEREDITY. 

no  more  funds  except  through  the  Baring  Brothers, 
or  some  English  firm.  Undoubtedly  we  have  sound 
houses  ;  but  let  this  silver  bill  pass,  let  foreign  cred- 
itors be  cheated  by  it,  or  put  into  such  a  position 
that  they  assuredly  \yould  think  themselves  cheated, 
and  the  effect  on  American  credit  will  be  of  a 
painful  kind,  and  perhaps  prolonged.  There  is  no 
sense  in  the  boards  of  trade  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  if 
they  do  not  know  where  their  interest  lies  in  the 
matters  of  importation  and  exportation.  But  the 
Atlantic  cities,  which  have  most  at  stake,  are  sub- 
stantially a  unit  against  this  silver  bill.  Your  Boston 
Board  of  Trade  has  appealed  to  Congress  against  its 
passage,  and  at  the  same  time  has  not  been  unmind- 
ful of  the  interest  of  the  poor  man.  The  Boston 
Board  of  Trade  is  willing  to  have  all  debts  under  ten 
dollars  —  under  any  small  sum  —  paid  in  silver  ; 
willing  that  silver  shall  be  legal  tender  in  small 
amounts ;  and  that  takes  off  a  burden  from  persons 
who  are  extremely  poor,  and  diminishes  the  weight 
of  the  clamor  concerning  two  kinds  of  money,  one 
for  the  rich  and  another  for  the  debtor  class. 

If  the  silver  bill  were  to  become  a  law,  it  would 
depreciate  the  value  of  the  savings  banks  deposits  of 
the  poor.  Who  does  not  know  that  every  man  that 
has  put  money  into  a  bank  has  expected,  and  has 
been  led  to  expect  by  the  action  of  the  general  gov- 
ernment, that  it  would  gradually  appreciate  in  value  ? 
We  have  had  a  terrific  experience  with  an  inflated 
currency  in  the  form  of  paper,  and  yet  we  have  little 
by  little  come  out  of  it :  such  is  the  recuperative  pow- 


USTLIKENESS   LN"   ORGANISMS.  147 

er  of  American  commercial  life.  Now,  on  the  heels 
of  the  disasters  which  have  followed  our  inflated  cur- 
rency, and  which  in  some  senses  have  turned  a  great 
part  of  the  country  into  a  gambling-house,  we  are 
asked  to  inflate  the  currency  again  by  agreeing  that 
ninety-two  cents  in  silver  shall  be  worth  a  hundred 
in  gold.  Many  of  the  evils  which  came  to  savings 
banks  under  the  old  inflation  will  come  in  this  pro- 
posed new  inflation.  Every  man  has  been  watching 
the  rise  of  the  value  of  the  paper  currency.  It  now 
is  almost  ready  to  transform  itself  into  gold.  We 
shall  resume  the  cash  payment  of  paper  promises 
soon,  and  do  so  in  the  hardest  coin,  —  that  which  is 
the  standard  of  the  world.  But  it  is  very  evident 
that  if  the  silver  bill  were  to  pass,  and  the  new  infla- 
tion were  to  enter  upon  its  course,  every  man  who 
has  made  a  contract,  every  man  who  has  money  out 
at  interest,  would  be  more  or  less  defrauded. 

It  seems  to  be  seriously  imagined  in  certain  quar- 
ters, that  we  can  buy  things  cheaper  if  only  we  pass 
the  silver  bill,  and  make  ninety-two  cents  equal  to  a 
hundred.  But  here  is  my  friend  Mr.  Jones,  who 
sells  merchandise  and  groceries ;  and  here  I  am.  He 
sees  me  coming  with  a  dollar  that  is  worth  ninety- 
two  cents.  What  does  he  do?  He  raises  the  price  of 
his  groceries  and  his  merchandise  rather  more  than 
eight  per  cent,  and  when  I  reach  his  salesroom  my 
advantage  has  evaporated.  How  is  it  that  we  do  not 
see  that  the  poor,  the  extremely  indigent,  who  must 
pay  high  prices  for  food  in  parcels,  are  injured  by  all 
inflation  in  currency  ?     Prices  go  up  as  money  goes 


148  HEREDITY. 

down.  In  the  long  course  we  must  pay  what  things 
are  worth.  It  is  by  the  merciless  law  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest,  after  ages  of  experience,  that  gold  re- 
tains its  place  in  most  modern  nations  as  a  monetary 
standard. 

If  you  want  two  standards,  as  many  do ;  if  you 
think  it  essential  to  the  progress  of  civilization  that 
there  should  be  a  silver  dollar  as  well  as  a  gold  dol- 
lar, let  the  nations  agree.  Have  an  international 
congress  called ;  let  Berlin  and  London  and  Paris 
unite  with  New  York  and  Boston  in  determining 
that  there  shall  be  a  double  standard.  Until  you 
can  rule  the  whole  circuit  of  the  atmosphere,  do  not 
think  you  can  prevent  the  winds  from  flowing  down 
the  hollows.     [Applause.] 

THE   LECTURE. 

When  the  ice  breaks  up  in  the  St.  Lawrence  in 
the  spring,  it  does  not  move  all  at  once,  but  is  first 
honeycombed  by  the  approach  of  the  sun  from  the 
south.  In  the  middle  of  the  mighty  river  an  open- 
ing appears  where  the  currents  are  swiftest ;  and, 
Little  by  little,  they  shoulder  the  masses  of  ice  against 
the  shore,  piling  them  sometimes  to  the  height  of 
thirty  and  forty  feet,  with  a  noise  of  crushing,  upon 
each  other.  At  last  the  river  carries  to  the  ocean 
not  a  sheet  of  haughty  solidified  water,  but  of  obedi- 
ent aqueous  fluid,  reduced  to  pliability,  forgetting 
that  it  ever  was  locked  up  by  the  winter,  filling  itself 
with  mirrored  reflections  of  earth  and  sky,  and  glid- 
ing meekly  into  the  sea  as  a  part  of  the  shoulder- 


UNLIKENESS   IN   OKGANISMS.  149 

ins:  currents  themselves.  Just  so  the  ice  which  has 
covered  the  surface  of  a  large  part  of  philosophy, 
the  uncertainty  as  to  the  authority  of  self-evident 
truth,  the  frigid  sheet  of  speculation  on  which  has 
been  built  the  assertion  that  conscience  might  have 
been  another  thing  had  our  environment  been  dif- 
ferent, is  breaking  up.  It  is  being  shot  through 
and  through  by  the  returning  vernal  season  of  confi- 
dence in  the  plan  of  human  nature.  The  central 
currents  are  already  in  sight ;  they  begin  to  shoulder 
the  edges  of  ice ;  occasionally  a  great  roar  is  heard 
along  the  banks ;  the  crushing  of  the  blocks  has 
begun ;  and  by  and  by  we  shall  have  this  philosophy 
of  nescience  and  materialism,  this  doubt  whether 
there  are  any  ultimate  grounds  of  certainty,  this 
scepticism  concerning  the  soul's  necessary  beliefs, 
melted,  running  with  the  great  currents,  received 
into  the  ocean,  and  casting  up  its  gleaming  and  its 
exhalation  into  the  face  of  the  sky,  with  all  the  tides 
that  God  draws  upward  in  the  sea.     [Applause.] 

I  am  not  prophesying  in  vain,  for  I  hold  in  my 
hands  the  proof  that  the  prophecy  is  being  fulfilled. 
Stuart  .Mill  and  Dr.  McCosh  were  accustomed  to 
walk  over  this  field  of  ice ;  and  I  must  show  you, 
before  I  advance  to  the  physiological  side  of  their 
problem,  how  unwilling  Mill  was  to  bear  his  weight 
on  the  central  ice.  He  would  walk  near  the  shore 
with  a  very  firm  tread ;  but  toward  the  end  of  his 
career,  Mill,  in  his  "  Examination  of  Sir  William  Ham- 
ilton's Philosophy,"  said,  "  Whether  the  three  so-called 
fundamental  laws  of  thought  are  laws  of  our  thoughts 


150  HEREDITY. 

by  the  native  structure  of  the  mind,  or  merely  be- 
cause we  perceive  them  to  be  universally  true  of 
observed  phenomena,  I  will  not  positively  decide ; 
but  they  are  laws  of  our  thoughts,  now  and  invin- 
cibly so.  They  may  or  may  not  be  capable  of 
alteration  by  experience."  (Mill's  Admissions.  See 
McCosh,  Fundamental  Truth,  p.  75.)  The  mature 
Stuart  Mill  is  very  shy  of  that  ice.  He  knew  it  was 
becoming  thin.     [Applause.] 

Many  think  Mill  asserts  that  all  our  fundamental 
beliefs  are  the  results  of  our  environment,  and  might 
have  been  different  had  our  experience  been  (lif- 
erent ;  but  this  is  a  great  misapprehension.  He  says 
distinctly  that  the  more  important  of  them  may 
or  may  not  be  capable  of  alteration  by  experience ; 
and  that  is  all  he  ever  would  say.  If  you  will  read 
the  chapter  in  McCosh's  "Defence  of  Fundamental 
Truth,"  entitled  "  Mr.  Mill's  Admissions,"  you  will 
find  twenty-four  of  these  singular  concessions,  used 
as  cimiters  to  cut  down  the  haughtiness  of  the  old 
and  now  largely  outgrown  associational  philosophy. 

But  there  was  one  point  of  the  ice  where  the  water 
came  through.  Mill  would  not  weigh  himself  there. 
He  would  not  trust  the  weight  of  a  feather  there. 
An  unscholarly  rationalistic  newspaper  has  lately 
called  on  me  to  prove  that  Mill  ever  said  that  any 
necessary  belief  —  as,  for  instance,  that  a  thing  cannot 
be  and  not  be  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  sense 
—  may  be  primordial  or  original  in  human  nature, 
and  not  the  result  of  mere  experience.  1  have  been 
asked    to   give    the   page    and    line    of    Mill's   writ- 


UNXIKEXESS   IN   OKGASTISMS.  151 

ings  where  he  uses  this  language.  If  anybody  will 
open  the  American  edition  of  Mill's  "  Examination 
of  Sir  William  Hamilton's  Philosophy,"  at  the  eigh- 
ty-eighth page  of  the  first  volume,  he  will  read, 
"  That  the  same  thing  should  at  once  be  and  not 
be,  —  that  identically  the  same  statement  should 
be  both  true  and  false,  —  is  not  only  inconceivable 
to  us,  but  we  cannot  conceive  that  it  could  be  made 
conceivable.  We  cannot  attach  sufficient  meaning 
to  the  proposition,  to  be  able  to  represent  to  our- 
selves the  supposition  of  a  different  experience  on 
this  matter.  We  cannot  therefore  entertain  the 
question,  whether  the  incompatibility  is  in  the  origi- 
nal structure  of  our  minds,  or  is  only  put  there  by 
our  experience.  The  case  is  otherwise  in  all  the 
other  examples  of  inconceivability.  Our  incapacity 
of  conceiving  the  same  thing  as  A  and  not  A,  may 
be  primordial ;  but  our  inability  to  conceive  A  with- 
out B  is  because  A,  by  experience  or  teaching,  has 
become  inseparably  associated  with  some  mental 
representation  which  includes  the  negation  of  C. 
Thus  all  inconceivabilities  may  be  reduced  to  insep- 
arable association,  combined  with  original  inconceiva- 
bility of  a  direct  contradiction."  (See  also  pp.  96, 
111,  112;  and  Mel's  Logic,  book  i.  chap.  vii.  sect. 
7.)  Mill,  in  his  later  career,  never  would  put  his  foot 
over  this  place  where  the  ice  of  the  St.  Lawrence 
was  so  thin.  But  we  have  men  in  Boston  who  go  in 
there  for  a  bath.     (Laughter.) 

How  shall  we  account  for  the  unlikenesses  of  dif- 
ferent organisms  ? 


152  HEREDITY. 

There  are  five  theories  for  the  explanation  of  the 
origin  of  the  diversity  of  forms  in  animals  and  plants 
and  all  that  has  life.  Turning  from  the  metaphysical 
side  of  the  question  as  to  the  origin  of  necessary- 
beliefs,  I  now  am  to  outline  before  you  the  principal 
theories  on  the  physiological  side  of  that  problem  in 
philosophy. 

Hereditary  descent  has  been  explained  by  one  or 
the  other  of  these  hypotheses  :  — 

1.  Chemical  affinities ; 

2.  Elective  affinities ; 

3.  Organic  polarities ; 

4.  Inherent  movements  in  bioplasm  ; 

5.  Life,  defined  as  the  power  which  co-ordinates 
the  movements  of  germinal  matter. 

We  have,  in  the  first  place,  the  old  Lucretiau 
hypothesis,  or  atomic  theory,  that  chemical  affinities 
and  physical  forces  explain  the  origin  of  form  in 
organisms.  In  the  name  of  Herbert  Spencer  himself, 
we  may  make  short  work  with  that  style  of  material- 
ism. Agassiz  used  to  say  that  if  only  physical  and 
chemical  forces  are  at  work  in  the  organisms  of 
plants  and  animals,  we  cannot  account  for  the  diver- 
sity of  the  types  of  growth.  The  chemical  units 
are  the  same  throughout  the  world.  Ox}rgen  is 
oxygen  in  the  elm  and  in  the  palm,  in  the  eagle  and 
in  the  lion.  Hydrogen,  carbon,  as  ultimate  atoms 
are  the  same  throughout  the  world,  and,  for  all  we 
know,  throughout  the  universe ;  and  therefore  there 
is  no  accounting  for  the  diversity  of  form  in  organi- 
zations if  physical  forces  are  the  only  ones  at  work 


TJNLIKEXESS   IX   OPwGANISMS.  153 

in  them.  The  old  Lucretian  hypothesis  is  so  far  an- 
swered that  it  needs  no  longer  to  be  considered  in  the 
conflict  with  materialism.  It  is  not  only  crass  and 
obsolescent,  but  among  scholars  it  is  obsolete.  Let 
Herbert  Spencer,  however,  be  the  policeman  to  give  it 
a  last  arrest  and  imprisonment.  In  his  "  Biology,"  a 
book  now  outgrown  by  the  progress  of  knowledge, 
Spencer  wrote  in  1866,  "It  cannot  be  in  those  proxi- 
mate chemical  compounds  composing  organic  bodies, 
that  specific  polarity  dwells.  It  cannot  be  that  the 
atoms  of  albumen,  or  fibrine,  or  gelatine,  or  the  hypo- 
thetical protein-substance,  possess  this  power  of  ag- 
gregating into  specific  shapes,"  —  and  he  gives  the 
same  reason  upon  which  Agassiz  insisted,  —  "  for  in 
such  case  there  would  be  nothing  to  account  for  the 
unlikeness  of  different  organisms.  Millions  of  species 
of  plants  and  animals,  more  or  less  contrasted  in  their 
structures,  are  all  mainly  built  up  of  these  complex 
atoms.  But  if  the  polarities  of  these  atoms  deter- 
mined the  forms  of  the  organisms  they  composed,  the 
occurrence  of  such  endlessly  varied  forms  would  be 
inexplicable.  Hence,  what  we  may  call  the  chemical 
units  are  clearly  not  the  possessors  of  this  property." 
(Biology,  American  edition,  vol.  i.  p.  181.) 

.Many  a  man  who  calls  himself  a  Spencerian,  but  is 
only  a  random  student  of  his  writings,  or  who  has 
read  him  with  liis  fingers  more  than  with  his  eyes, 
and  heard  him  with  his  elbows  rather  than  with  his 
ears,  will  defend  on  the  street,  and  sometimes  in  the 
newspapers,  that  obsolescent  form  of  materialism 
which   even  Spencer   discards.      I   shall,   from    this 


154  HEREDITY. 

point  on,  take  it  for  granted  that  the  Lucretian  hy- 
pothesis of  materialism  is  dead. 

Next  we  come  to  Darwin's  theory  of  the  elective 
affinities,  or  pangenesis.  We  have  here  a  circle, 
let  us  suppose,  and  at  its  centre  there  is  an  atom 
of  matter.  According  to  Darwin's  hypothesis,  all 
the  movements  of  matter  in  living  organisms  aie 
to  be  accounted  for  by  the  elective  affinities  of  minute 
particles  called  gemmules.  Darwin  does  not  in  terms 
deny  that  the  first  germs  were  originated  by  the 
Divine  Power,  and  it  is  not  necessary  for  him  to  do 
that.  Such  affinities  were  put  into  that  original 
germ,  that  every  thing  we  call  life  has  been  devel- 
oped out  of  the  germ.  We,  therefore,  must  deter- 
mine the  qualities  of  that  original  living  matter  by 
Darwin's  definition  of  elective  affinities.  Now,  how 
many  affinities  must  there  be  to  account  for  the 
movements  of  a  particle  of  matter  to  any  and  every 
point  of  a  circle  drawn  around  it  ?  Why,  just  as  many 
affinities  as  there  are  points  in  the  circle !  You  have 
three  hundred  and  sixty  degrees  in  your  circle,  and 
there  may  be  at  least  three  hundred  and  sixty  points 
measurable  by  the  microscope  in  each  degree.  If  the 
affinities  of  this  gemmule  account  for  all  its  move- 
ments, they  must  account  for  its  movements  in  any 
direction,  toward  any  part  of  that  circle.  In  con- 
structing the  complex  whole  we  call  man,  the  gem- 
mules  must  move  to  every  part  of  a  circle,  up,  down, 
forward,  backward.  Indeed,  we  must  not  only  have 
affinities  that  will  enable  the  atom  to  move  in  every 
direction  inside  a  circle,  but  in  e\eiy  direction  inside 


UNLIKENESS   Df   ORGANISMS.  155 

a  sphere.  I  have  represented  here  only  a  plane  sur- 
face ;  but,  if  there  were  another  circle  cutting  thus 
at  right  angles  [drawing  a  figure  on  the  blackboard], 
the  atom  would  need  to  have  as  many  affinities  as 
are  represented  by  the  radii  of  both  the  first  and  the 
second  circle.  Inside  a  sphere  there  must  be  as 
many  affinities  as  there  are  points  toward  which  that 
central  particle  will  be  called,  or  tend,  in  its  weaving 
different  physical  tissues.  Rather  a  complex  set  of 
affinities  to  belong  to  one  gemmule ;  and  yet  Darwin's 
affinities  must  be  thus  complex,  or  they  cannot  ac- 
count for  the  formation  of  what  we  see,  and  what  we 
can  touch.  Gemmules  must  be  moving  in  all  direc- 
tions, or  they  cannot  build  a  hand  or  an  eye.  It  is 
evident  that  as  many  dots  as  can  be  placed  on  the 
inside  of  a  sphere  by  the  aid  of  the  best  imagination 
will  not  be  as  numerous  as  the  affinities  which  must 
belong  to  a  gemmule,  if  you  are  to  account  for  its 
motion  by  affinities  alone. 

But  motion  is  not  the  only  thing  for  which  Dar- 
win must  account.  He  must  explain  the  self-nour- 
ishment of  each  of  these  gemmules.  They  must 
have,  therefore,  as  many  affinities  as  there  are  differ- 
ent kinds  of  tissues  in  the  organism  to  which  they 
belong.  One  gemmule  must  take  up  the  matter  ne- 
cessary to  produce  a  cellular  integument,  and  another 
that  which  is  needed  to  produce  a  lens  in  the  eye, 
and  so  on  through  the  multitudinous  forms  of  tissue. 
Thus,  while  we  have  need  of  a  host  of  affinities  to 
account  for  motion,  there  must  be  a  second  infinitude 
of  affinities  to  account  for  self- nourishment. 


156  HEREDITY. 

But  self-nourishment  is  not  the  only  thing  to  be 
explained  by  elective  affinities.  Growth  and  forma- 
tive power  must  be  accounted  for,  and  these  in  every 
different  type  of  organism  must  be  peculiar.  Here, 
then,  a  third  and  fourth  infinitude  of  affinities  are 
needed. 

But  we  must  also  account  for  reproduction.  We 
must  account  for  the  co-ordination  of  tissue  with 
tissue.  So  here  are  six  kinds  of  incalculably  com- 
plex labyrinths  through  which  these  affinities  must 
wander  without  error  or  bewilderment.  Draw  circles 
around  each  of  the  other  sets  of  affinities  as  you  did 
around  the  first  set,  and  you  will  find  them  just  as 
complex.  There  must  be  sphere  within  sphere  ;  and 
every  one  of  these  affinities  must  be  accounted  for 
by  the  qualities  possessed  by  the  atoms  of  the  ori- 
ginal germ  from  which  all  life  has  descended.  The 
affinities  must  work,  wheel  within  wheel,  endlessly; 
and  at  last  they  must  bring  into  existence  a  being 
that  is  a  unit,  always  one  thing  from  birth  to  death. 
Destroy  the  co-ordinating  class  of  affinities,  and  the 
others  would  explain  nothing.  We  reach  here,  there- 
fore, the  necessity  of  a  co-ordinating  power. 

Professor  Delphino  of  Florence,  looking  with  his 
keen  Italian  eye  upon  Darwin's  hypothesis  of  pan- 
genesis, said,  as  many  scholars  have  affirmed  since, 
that  it  requires  eight  subsidiary  Irypotheses.  But 
not  eight  only  :  eight  hundred,  rather,  are  required. 
There  must  be  these  different  offices  performed  by 
every  living  thing,  and  the  movement  of  the  gem- 
mules  must  be  accounted  for  by  affinities  practically 


TTNLIKENESS   IN   ORGANISMS.  157 

infinite  in  number.  Nevertheless,  when  we  examine 
the  necessities  of  Darwin's  lvypothesis  of  pangenesis, 
we  must  include  among  the  affinities  of  the  gem- 
mules,  a  co-ordinating  power  as  effective  as  what  we 
call  life.  There  must  be  some  power  that  holds  all 
these  gemmules  to  one  plan  in  their  weaving.  There 
is  such  a  power.  We  know  this.  Darwin  does  not 
deny  the  existence  of  this  co-ordinating  power,  but 
he  calls  it  affinity.  It  is  elective  choice  among  these 
gemmules.  Since,  therefore,  the  existence  of  a  co- 
ordinating power  is  conceded,  let  us  fasten  the  fact 
in  our  memory.  Darwin  meets  us  at  this  co-ordinat- 
ing power  which  governs  the  movements  of  germinal 
matter.  We  call  it  life :  he  calls  it  an  elective  affin- 
ity. I  undertake  to  assert  that  there  can  be  no  clear 
statement  of  Darwin's  hypothesis  of  pangenesis  that 
does  not  include  this  co-ordinating  power  behind  the 
movements  of  germinal  matter.  In  the  facts  which 
it  acknowledges,  the  second  of  the  five  theories, 
therefore,  is  not  very  unlike  the  fifth. 

Turning  to  the  third  hypothesis,  we  find  Herbert 
Spencer's  famous  doctrine  of  organic  polarities.  This 
is  not  Darwin's  theory,  by  any  means,  although  the 
latter  is  often  confused  with  it.  In  his  definitions 
Herbert  Spencer  is  famous  for  his  felicity  of  phrases, 
but  not  for  felicity  of  thought.  Organic  polarity  is 
the  smooth  phrase  he  uses  to  describe  the  cause 
of  unlikeness  in  organisms.  How  does  he  himself 
define  these  two  words? 

Herbert  Spencer  is  a  candid  man  under  the  power 
of  a  tyrannical  theory.     His  effort  is  to  account  for 


158  HEREDITY. 

every  thing  in  life  by  matter  and  motion.  In  what 
we  call  vitality,  he  would  explain  every  thing  in 
terms  of  matter  and  force.  When,  however,  he  gives 
a  definition  of  what  he  means  by  polarity,  the  facts  of 
actual  observation  trouble  him.  He  says  that  there 
is  "  an  innate  tendency  in  living  particles  to  arrange 
themselves  into  the  shape  of  the  organism  to  which 
they  belong  ....  For  this  property  there  is  no  fit 
term.  If  we  accept  the  world  '  polarity '  "  —  I  am 
quoting  here  a  chapter  enlitled  "  Waste  and  Repair," 
in  Spencer's  Biology  (American  edition,  pp.  180-183) 
—  "as  a  name  for  the  force  by  which  inorganic  units 
are  aggregated  into  a  form  peculiar  to  them,  we  may 
apply  this  word  to  the  analogous  force  displayed  by 
organic  units  ....  taking  care,  however,  to  re- 
strict its  meaning." 

Hundreds  of  loose  readers  of  Spencer  think  he 
means  by  "  polarity  "  just  what  is  meant  by  it  in  the 
range  of  physical  research.  He  carefully  restricts 
the  meaning  of  the  word,  and  closes  his  paragraph 
by  this  very  significant  language :  "  If  we  simply 
substitute  the  term  '  polarity '  for  the  circuitous  ex- 
pression,—  the  'power  which  certain  units  have  of  ar- 
ranging themselves  into  a  special  form,  —  we  may,  with- 
out assuming  any  thing  more  than  is  proved,  use  the 
term  'organic  polarity,'  or  polarity  of  the  organic 
units,  to  signify  the  proximate  cause  of  the  ability 
which  organisms  display  of  reproducing  lost  parts." 
Elsewhere  he  says  that  this  same  law  is  involved  in 
hereditary  descent.  By  organic  polarity,  therefore, 
he  always  means  the  power  that  certain  units  have  of 


UNLIKENESS   IN   ORGANISMS.  159 

arranging  themselves  into  a  special  form.  Well,  that 
is  substantially  what  we  mean  by  a  co-ordinating  power 
behind  the  movements  of  germinal  matter!  Any  man 
who  will  attend  to  definitions  may  easily  ascertain 
that  the  power  Herbert  Spencer  calls  organic  polarity 
must  be,  at  the  last  analysis,  substantially  the  same 
in  effect  as  life,  defined  as  the  power  which  co-ordi- 
nates the  movements  of  germinal  matter.  Come  out 
upon  this  sheet  of  ice  to  the  central  currents,  and 
you  will  find  Herbert  Spencer  just  as  shy  in  the 
range  of  physiology,  as  Stuart  Mill  was  in  the  range 
of  metaphysics,  of  putting  his  foot  on  that  central 
ice.  The  trouble  is  that  some  of  you  have  wan- 
dered with  Herbert  Spencer  only  up  and  down  the 
shores,  looking  at  the  bank-swallows'  nests  there  full 
of  snow. 

Herbert  Spencer  himself  more  than  hints  that  life 
must  go  before  organization,  although  in  spirit  his 
theory  has  little  regard  for  that  truth.  "  It  may 
be  argued,  that,  on  the  hypothesis  of  evolution,  life 
necessarily  comes  before  organization.  On  this  hy- 
pothesis, organic  matter  in  a  state  of  homogeneous 
aggregation  must  precede  organic  matter  in  a  state 
of  heterogeneous  aggregation.  But,  since  the  passing 
from  a  structureless  state  to  a  structured  state  is 
itself  a  vital  process,  it  follows  that  vital  activity 
must  have  existed  while  there  was  yet  no  structure  : 
structure  could  not  else  arise."  (Biology,  American 
edition,  p.  1G7.) 

The  cause  must  go  before  the  effect.  Structured 
matter  is  structured  by  a  cause.     That  cause  goe3 


160  HEREDITY. 

before  the  structure  it  produces.  The  structuring 
cause  Spencer  calls  organic  polarity.  I  call  it  life. 
As  far  as  it  makes  use  of  facts,  the  third  theory  is 
therefore,  .at  the  last  analysis,  substantially  the  same 
as  the  fifth. 

In  the  advance  of  microscopical  investigation,  we 
are  finding  that  the  great  discoveries  of  the  last  thirty 
years  concerning  germinal  matter  have  forced  even 
upon  materialistic  biologists,  since  Spencer  wrote  his 
work,  a  new  definition  of  life,  and  one  approaching 
yet  more  closely  to  that  which  has  been  defended 
here.  The  latter,  which  may  be  called  the  established 
definition,  I  call  the  Aristotelian  also,  for  it  expresses 
Aristotle's  idea  that  life  is  the  cause  of  forms  in 
organisms.  I  hold  in  my  hands  a  recent  work  repre- 
senting fresh  discussion  by  French  materialists.  This 
volume  has  but  just  crossed  the  ocean.  It  is  "  Biolo- 
gy," by  Dr.  Charles  Letourneau,  a  book  well  known  in 
French,  and  translated  now  into  English  by  Maccall, 
and  constituting  the  second  volume  of  Chapman  and 
Hall's  Library  of  Contemporary  Science.  Its  discus- 
sion has  a  materialistic  trend,  as  any  one  will  see 
who  opens  at  the  strategic  points.  Always,  when 
you  take  up  a  volume  on  biology,  turn  to  the  chapter 
on  spontaneous  generation.  If  any  author  believes 
in  spontaneous  generation,  he  is  behind  the  times. 
Letourneau  writes  not  without  courage  :  — 

"We  are  compelled  to  admit  that  the  first  living 
beings  spontaneously  organized  themselves  at  the 
expense  of  mineral  matter. 

"  The  Darwinian  doctrine,  which  results  with  such 


TEN-LIKENESS   IN  ORGANISMS.  161 

evidence  from  paleontology,  from  embrj-ology  from 
the  well-hierarchized  classification  of  the  organisms, 
demands  as  its  indispensable  complement  spontane- 
ous formation,  without  germs,  without  parents,  of 
the  first  examples  of  the  living  world. 

"In  the  scientific  domain,  any  logical  and  neces- 
sary deduction  or  induction  ought  to  be  admitted 
without  contest,  though  it  may  shock  old  ideas  and 
shatter  old  dogmas."     (Page  301.) 

Here  is  much  more  audacity  than  acuteness.  In 
contradiction  to  Darwin,  and  against  Tyndall,  against 
Huxley,  against  all  the  cautious  men  in  our  modern 
physical  research,  this  representative  of  Hackel's 
school  asserts  spontaneous  generation.  He  is  to  be 
pitied,  but  needs  no  reply  here. 

Nevertheless,  when  I  turn  to  Letourneau's  defini- 
tion of  life,  —  this  is  the  second  strategic  point  in 
any  book  on  biology:  feel  the  pulse  at  these  two 
places  in  any  volume  on  which  you  cannot  spend 
more  than  twenty  minutes,  —  I  find  Herbert  Spencer's 
definition  rejected  in  the  name  of  late  research  :  — 

"  The  definition  of  H.  Spencer,  '  the  continual 
agreement  between  interior  and  exterior  relations,' 
has  the  fault  of  being  too  abstract,  and  of  soaring  so 
high  above  facts  that  it  ceases  to  recall  them.  Be- 
sides, just  by  reason  of  its  vague  generality,  it  might 
also  be  applied  to  certain  continuous  chemical  phe- 
nomena. 

"It  would  be  better  to  descend  nearer  to  the  earth, 
and  to  limit  ourselves  to  giving  a  short  summary  of 
the  principal  vital  facts  which  have  been  observed. 


162  HEREDITY. 

Doubtless,  life  depends  upon  a  twofold  movement 
of  decomposition  and  renovation,  simultaneous  and 
continuous ;  but  this  movement  produces  itself  in 
the  midst  of  substances  having  a  physical  state,  and 
most  frequently  a  morphological  state,  quite  peculiar 
to  them.  Finally,  this  movement  brings  into  play 
di  vrer^e  functions  in  relation  with  this  morphological 
state  of  the  living  tissues,  habitually  composed  of 
cells  and  fibres,  endowed  with  special  properties. 

"  Let  us  say,  then,  that  life  is  a  twofold  movement 
of  simultaneous  and  continual  composition  and  de- 
composition, in  the  midst  of  plasmatic  substances, 
or  of  figurate  anatomical  elements,  which,  under  the 
influence  of  this  indwelling  movement,  perform  their 
functions  in  conformity  to  their  structure."  (Page 
34.) 

I  consider  this  late  definition  an  important  piece 
of  philosophical  news ;  and  it  is  my  business  here,  as 
an  outlook  committee,  to  put  before  you  all  such 
intelligence  on  which  I  can  lay  hands.  This  French 
materialistic  writer  gives  a  definition  of  life  very 
much  nearer  the  one  which  has  been  defended  here 
than  any  in  Darwin  or  Spencer.  He  calls  life,  sub- 
stantially, an  internal  movement  in  bioplasm. 

Letourneau's  definition  is  too  long,  and  has  not  the 
usual  French  grace  of  expression;  but  three  things 
are  very  noticeable  in  it.  First,  life  is  defined  as  a 
movement  occurring  at  its  earliest  stage,  "in  the 
midst  of  plasmatic  substances,"  by  which  he  means 
bioplasm.  Thus  he  confines  life,  at  its  outset,  to 
germinal  matter.     Spencer's  definition  does  not  thus 


UNLIKENESS   IN   ORGANISMS.  163 

limit  life.  Secondly,  Letourneau  speaks  of  movements 
in  "  figurate  anatomical  elements  "  as  life,  but  else- 
where recognizes  the  fact  that  these  elements  obtain 
their  figurate  character  by  the  agency  of  bioplasm. 
Lastly,  Letourncau's  definition  points  out  the  exist- 
ence of  a  co-ordinating  force.  The  figurate  elements 
and  plasmatic  substances  "  perform  their  functions  in 
conformity  to  their  structure." 

Thus,  in  the  progress  of  discovery,  the  latest  defi- 
nitions of  life  approach  more  and  more  nearly  to  the 
Aristotelian.  At  the  last  analysis,  this  French  mate- 
rialistic definition,  which  calls  life  "a  movement  in 
plasmatic  substances,"  implies  all  that  has  been  as 
serted  here,  in  the  definition  of  life  as  the  power 
which  co-ordinates  the  movements  of  germinal  mat- 
ter. The  movement  in  plasmatic  substances  must 
have  a  cause ;  and  this  we  call  life.  Notice  the  grad- 
ual approach  of  science  to  that  definition.  The 
progress  of  microscopical  research  has  forced  mate- 
rialism forward  to  this  final  breaking-up  of  the  ice. 
The  Lucretian  theory  is  ice  on  which  no  man  dares 
to  stand.  Darwin's  elective  affinities,  and  Spencer's 
organic  polarities,  lie  at  spots  where  men  already  hear 
the  ice  break.  In  Letourneau's  definition,  the  swift 
central  currents  begin  to  pile  the  ice  up  on  the  shore. 
In  Beale's,  Lotze's,  and  Ulrici's,  as  well  as  Aristotle's, 
definition,  you  have  the  clear,  open  stream.  [Ap- 
plause J 

What  bearing  has  this  definition  on  the  question 
as  to  the  origin  of  conscience?  How  far  has  the 
definition  a  practical  application  in  reference  to  the 


164  HEKEDITY. 

authority  of  self-evident  truth  ?  See ;  there  is  a  stack 
of  books,  —  I  might  have  piled  it  half  as  high  as  the 
roof  of  this  Temple,  —  turning  on  the  metaphysical 
inquiry  whether  conscience  is  really  final  authority, 
whether  it  results  from  the  plan  of  our  nature,  or 
whether  it  might  not  have  been  different  had  our  en- 
vironment been  different.  On  the  physiological  side 
yonder  is  another  stack  of  books,  that  I  might  have 
piled  half  as  high  as  the  roof  of  this  Temple,  and 
turning,  in  large  part,  upon  the  same  question. 

1.  None  of  the  five  theories,  except  the  fifth,  accounts 
for  mans  sense  of  unity  and  identity. 

2.  The  theory  of  life,  therefore,  is  the  only  one 
that  covers  all  the  facts  in  the  case. 

3.  Lionel  Beale  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  "  the 
vital  power  of  the  highest  form  of  bioplasm  in  nature 
is  the  living  I."     (Bioplasm,  p.  209,  London,  1872.) 

4.  Even  Spencer  and  Darwin  are  obliged  to  use 
the  word  "  innate." 

5.  Since  a  structuring  power  must  exist  before 
any  thing  can  be  structured,  the  plan  of  the  body  is 
innate  in  its  co-ordinating  or  structuring  power. 

6.  The  plan  of  the  soul,  including  its  necessary 
beliefs  and  the  conscience,  is  also. 

7.  The  pretence  that  the  conscience  and  the  mathe- 
matical axioms  are  merely  the  inherited  effects  of 
environment  and  experience,  and  might  have  been 
different  had  experience  been  different,  is  thus 
answered. 

8.  There  are,  therefore,  innate  tendencies  not  de- 
rived from  our  environment ;  there  are  primary  be- 


UNLIKENESS   IN   ORGANISMS.  1^5 

liefs,  intellectual  and  ethical  and  aesthetic,  necessi- 
tated by  the  original  plan  of  the  soul. 

The  established  definition  of  life  as  the  power 
which  co-ordinates  the  movements  of  germinal  mat- 
ter, proves  that  there  was  a  plan  in  the  cabin  of  the 
Mayflower  before  any  sailors  landed.  In  the  original 
structure  of  the  soul  we  find  the  origin  of  necessary 
beliefs,  and  a  divine  revelation  of  self-evident  truths. 
Conscience  is  a  primordial  power.  Our  necessary 
beliefs  that  there  is  a  distinction  between  a  whole  and 
a  part,  and  right  and  wrong  motives,  would  not  have 
been  different  had  our  environment  been  different. 
The  progress  of  research,  in  justifying  more  and  more 
the  Aristotelian  definition  of  life,  causes  at  last  the 
icy  congealments  of  the  river  of  philosophical  specu- 
lation to  break  up.  We  shall  need,  twenty-five  years 
hence,  I  think,  no  discussion  with  those  who  do  not 
recognize  in  fundamental  truths  authority  entirely 
beyond  experience.  "  Primordial,"  as  Mill  says ; 
"original,"  as  French  materialism  says;  "  fundamen- 
tal," as  McCosh  says ;  "  innate,"  as  Spencer  says,  the 
primordial,  original,  fundamental,  innate,  self-evident 
truths  will  be  victorious  when  once  the  course  of 
scientific  discussion  has  shouldered  the  heavy  masses 
of  its  ice  into  the  middle  of  the  stream.  The  cor- 
rect scholarship  of  the  world  is  a  clear  river  there 
already;  and  on  it  —  the  swift,  central,  enduring 
current  —  I  advise  you  to  launch  your  fortunes. 
[Applause.] 


vn. 

LOTZE  ON  THE  UNION  OF  SOUL  AND  BODY. 


THE   NINETY-SEVENTH    LECTURE    IN   THE    BOSTON 

MONDAY   LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED    IN 

TREMONT    TEMPLE,   JAN.    21. 


The  unity  of  consciousness  is  indisputable,  and  to  our  mind 
inexplicable,  so  long  as  we  do  not  go  beyond  the  sphere  of  phys- 
ical science.  —  Ribot  :  Heredity. 


God  smote  his  hands  together,  and  struck  out  thy  soul  as  a  spark, 
Into  the  organized  glory  of  things,  from  deeps  of  the  dark. 

Mas.  Browning:  C07  if  ess  ions. 


VII. 

LOTZE  ON  THE  UNION  OF  SOUL  AND 

BODY. 

PRELUDE   ON   CURRENT   EVENTS. 

The  illustrious  Cornelia,  mother  of  the  Roman 
Gracchi,  was  assisted  in  the  education  of  her  sons 
by  eminent  Greeks.  Tiberius  Gracchus,  as  you  re- 
member, was  present  at  the  destruction  of  Carthage, 
in  the  year  146.  Called  to  a  position  in  Eastern 
Spain,  he  passed  through  Etruria,  the  old  Roman 
province  lying  in  the  angle  between  the  Tiber  and 
the  Mediterranean  toward  the  north  from  Rome. 
He  saw  that  the  middle  class  of  agriculturists  had 
died  out.  Slaves  in  chains  were  performing  manual 
labor  on  the  great  estates  which  are  said  by  his- 
torians to  have  ruined  Rome.  The  unemployed  in 
the  city  on  the  Seven  Hills  were  bravely  and  even 
tenderly  remembered  by  Tiberius  Gracchus,  although 
they  contained  explosive  elements,  idle  tramps  and 
refuse,  which  Shakspeare,  by  the  mouth  of  Corio- 
lanus,  has  described  as  reek  of  the  rotten  fens. 
Pagan  although  he  was,  this  Gracchus,  educated  in 
the  Greek  philosophy,  resolved  to  do  what  he  could 

169 


170  HEREDITY. 

to  create  an  industrious  class  of  agriculturists  of  the 
middle  rank.  The  lands  on  which  he  saw  slaves  in 
chains  performing  manual  labor  were  public,  not 
private,  property.  The  senators  were  long  misled 
by  thinking  the  Roman  Gracchi  proposed  to  dis- 
tribute private  lands  among  the  poor.  They  pro- 
posed only  to  redistribute  the  public  lands.  Grac- 
chus sought  to  enforce,  as  we  all  recollect,  a  law  by 
which  no  more  than  five  hundred  acres  of  the  public 
land  could  belong  to  a  single  individual.  If  he  had 
sons,  two  hundred  and  fifty  acres  for  each  son  were 
added  to  the  estate  governed  by  the  family.  Of 
course  these  provisions  drew  down  upon  Gracchus 
the  opposition  of  the  wealthy  class;  and  he  was 
finally  murdered,  in  his  thirty-fifth  year,  during  an 
election  riot  in  Rome. 

Had  Tiberius  Gracchus,  his  mother  Cornelia,  and 
Shakspeare,  with  all  the  ideas  that  are  uttered 
through  the  mouth  of  Coriolanus,  beheld  the  pro- 
cession of  five  thousand  workingmen  in  Boston  last 
Saturday,  they  would  have  been  profoundly  inter- 
ested and  moved;  but  they  would  have  proposed 
somewhat  different  measures  than  the  wdrkingmen 
themselves  indorse.  Nevertheless  we  must  beware 
of  thinking  that  every  thing  spouted  for  by  de- 
formers  is  nonsense.  One  of  the  things  most  needed 
in  modern  times  is  a  machine  for  sifting  deformer's 
proposals.  Under  universal  suffrage  it  is  important 
to  listen  to  every  outcry  from  men  who  are  hungry. 

If  we  sift  the  demands  made  upon  the  mayor  by 
this  Boston  procession,  we  shall  find  that  the  con- 


LOTZE  ON   THE  UNION  OF   SOUL  AND   BODY.     171 

eluding  ones,  which  were  placed  in  the  most  em- 
phatic position  by  the  petitioners,  are  not  very  un- 
wise. What  did  this  crowd  want  Saturday  ?  Ten 
measures  of  relief,  —  public  work  for  the  poor,  gov- 
ernmental ascertainment  of  the  number  of  unem- 
ployed, out-door  relief  for  the  needy,  new  public 
works,  borrowing  money  for  these  purposes,  repeal 
of  the  law  disfranchising,  all  who  have  received  re- 
lief from  the  city  within  twelve  months  previous  to 
election,  repeal  of  the  law  requiring  the  payment  of 
a  poll-tax  as  a  condition  of  voting,  the  prevention 
of  prison  labor  from  competition  with  honest  labor, 
the  abolition  of  the  contract  system.  All  that  reads 
very  much  like  petroleum  communism,  except  the 
three  opening  propositions.  There  should  be,  and 
there  is,  a  certain  amount  of  city  employment  for 
any  citizens  of  Boston  who  are  among  the  unem- 
ployed, provided  it  is  ascertained  that  they  are 
greatly  needy.  There  should  be  out-door  relief ;  and 
such,  within  a  certain  range,  is  furnished  in  Boston 
and  all  our  large  municipalities.  There  should  be 
governmental  ascertainment  of  the  number  of  the 
unemployed  ;  and  our  noble  Massachusetts  Bureau 
of  Industry  is  prosecuting  very  successful  inquiries 
into  the  relations  of  capital  and  labor.  But  between 
these  opening  and  the  closing  propositions  are  sand- 
wiched pieces  of  wildness  fit  only  for  a  mob.  All 
experience  is  against  these  middle  propositions,  and 
they  are  to  be  denounced  in  the  name  of  the  interest 
of  the  poor.  But  here  are  two  closing  propositions 
which  seem  to  me  to  deserve  success,  and  that  ought 


172  HEEEDITY. 

to  receive  the  attention  of  philanthropy, — govern- 
mental aid  to  land-ownership,  and  repayment  of  the 
loan  by  ten  annual  instalments  to  be  secured  by  a 
lien  on  the  land  and  utensils. 

What  I  want  is  encouragement  of  land-ownership 
as  a  means  of  relief  to  the  poor.  Let  us  call  back 
the  Roman  Gracchi  to  suggest  "a  redistribution  of  the 
unemployed. 

Men  in  want  are  accumulating  in  our  cities.  There 
are  unemployed  lands  in  the  West,  and  there  are 
successful  experiments  of  agricultural  colonization 
for  the  relief  of  the  extremely  poor. 

We  have  all  heard  the  famous  remark,  "  Go  West, 
young  man !  "  These  labor  troubles,  these  stretches 
of  real  want,  sometimes  of  starvation,  among  the 
unemployed,  ought  to  secure  from  us  a  sharp  atten- 
tion to  what  experience  has  demonstrated  as  to  the 
possibility  of  poor  people  getting  a  livelihood  out  of 
the  government  lands.  Horace  Greeley  lies  at  rest 
in  Greenwood  Cemetery ;  and  the  last  part  of  his  life 
had  in  it,  perhaps,  no  anxiety  deeper  than  to  con- 
tribute something  toward  the  solution  of  the  question, 
What  shall  be  done  for  the  unemployed  ?  You  re- 
member that  he  made  a  plea,  in  the  year  18G9,  for  land 
to  be  distributed  among  colonies  of  the  unemployed. 
He  finally  obtained  a  site  between  Denver  and 
Cheyenne.  Some  twelve  thousand  acres  were  bought 
there  from  railroad  companies,  and  two  thousand 
from  pre-emptors  and  squatters.  One  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars  were  raised  from  six  hundred  and  thirty 
persons.     About  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  and 


LOTZE  ON  THE   UNION  OF   SOUL   AND   BODY.    173 

five  dollars  for  expenses,  were  required  from  each 
settler  in  the  new  town.  Several  hundred  colonists 
went  in  May  to  this  reservation.  They  were  met  by 
a  late  spring.  They  suffered  much  in  the  absence 
of  houses;  but  in  June  they  began  to  plant  gar- 
dens. In  nine  months  they  had  four  hundred  houses, 
twenty  stores,  mechanics  in  abundance,  a  weekly 
newspaper,  and  not  a  single  gambling-establishment 
or  liquor-saloon.  [Applause.]  Grace  Greenwood 
visited  that  town  in  1872,  and  called  it  a  miracle  of 
social  advancement.  The  Greeley  settlement  is  a 
very  important  and  cheerful  suggestion  as  to  what 
may  be  done  with  some  of  the  unemployed. 

St.  Louis  has  a  colony  at  Evans,  near  this  town  of 
Greeley,  and  the  place"  is  full  of  promise.  Chicago 
has  a  Colorado  colony  at  Longmont,  and  it  is  said  to 
flourish  like  a  green  bay-tree.  Why  is  there  not  in 
the  public  domain  at  the  West  a  Boston  colony  for 
the  unemployed?  Are  St.  Louis  and  Chicago  and 
New  York  to  succeed  in  imitating  Gracchus,  and  is 
Boston  to  fail  in  doing  so  ? 

Of  course  we  have  any  number  of  persons  who 
are  willing  to  furnish  land  to  the  unemployed,  for  a 
consideration.  "Go  to  my  colony  !  Settle  near  my 
railroad  !  I  Ielp  raise  the  price  of  my  land  !  "  Ever}r- 
body  who  has  an  axe  to  grind  in  the  selling  of  lands 
for  such  colonies  is  likely  to  fleece  the  poor  more  or 
less.  There  has  fallen  upon  all  this  scheme  of  colo- 
nizing the  unemployed,  great  discredit  on  account  of 
the  land-sharks  that  have  entered  into  competition 
with  philanthropy.     Our  government  itself  is  unable 


174  HEKEDITY. 

always  to  withstand  the  rivalry  of  greed  and  fraud 
in  this  matter.  Our  national  power  has  passed  a 
pre-emption  law,  and  a  homestead  bill,  and  a  soldiers' 
bounty  act,  and  a  forest  bill.  To-day  a  hundred  and 
sixty  acres  are  given  into  a  man's  control  if  he  will 
keep  a  quarter  of  the  tract  covered  with  woods. 
But  the  more  fertile  portions  of  our  public  lands 
have  been  sold  to  railway-proprietors  and  other 
speculators ;  and  the  truth  is,  that  one  of  the  most 
difficult  things  in  prosecuting  now  any  enterprise 
like  that  of  Mr.  Greeley,  and  of  St.  Louis  and  Chi- 
cago, is  the  competition  of  land-sharks  and  railway- 
proprietors  who  are  speculators.  We  have  railroad 
kings  who  are  real  princes,  but  we  also  have  railway 
kings  who  are  thieves  and  sharks. 

"What,  therefore,  we  need,  is  an  organization  of 
philanthropy,  if  this  measure  of  land-ownership  is 
to  be  pushed.  We  want,  as  Mr.  Franklin  W.  Smith 
of  this  city  has  suggested  in  a  very  admirable 
pamphlet,  such  attention  to  this  theme  as  may  re- 
sult in  a  combination  of  capital  and  philanthropy 
to  secure  the  benefit  of  the  public  lands  for  the 
unemployed.  Let  us  take  out  of  the  hands  of  greed 
and  fraud  the  opportunity  to  defeat  Gracchus.  There 
is  no  agrarian  law  wanted.  There  is  an  organization 
of  philanthropy  needed,  such  that  we  can  move  suf- 
fering families,  worthy  and  willing  to  go  to  colonies 
like  those  of  St.  Louis  and  Chicago  and  Anaheim 
and  Vineland  and  Greeley.  There  are  five  specimen 
cases,  and  they  are  all  encouraging  ones.  Many  of 
the  unemployed  say  they  are  willing  to  go,  if  aided 
with  only  a  very  little  to  go  with. 


LOTZE   ON   THE   UNION   OF   SOUL   AND   BODY.     175 

Send  out  your  detectives  with  the  average  tramps, 
let  policemen  in  the  disguise  of  comrades  sleep  where 
the  tramps  sleep,  and  this,  I  venture  to  say,  will  be 
the  conversation  in  seven  cases  out  of  ten  :  "  Do  you 
know,  Tom,  that  I  have  had  my  meals  five  years  ?  " 

—  "  Yes !    Have  you  worked  any,  James  ?  "  —  "  No." 

—  "  Do  you  intend  to,  James  ?  "  —  "  Not  I."  —  "  How 
d:>  you  get  your  living?"  —  "I  ask  for  it  here  and 
there.  I  pick  it  up  now  and  then  without  asking. 
Out  in  the  counoy,  in  the  dark,  you  know,  I  have 
been  able  to  find  chickens  and  a  little  honey !  Some- 
times it  has  been  long  between  meals ;  but  I  have 
had  ni}T  meals  every  day,  with  some  irregularities,  for 
five  years,  and  I  intend  to  have  them  for  five  years  to 
come,  and  am  never  going  to  do  any  more  work ;  not 
I."  Perhaps  he  is  half  drunk.  Able-bodied  shiftless- 
ness  deserves  the  almshouse,  and  must  sink,  under 
the  eternal  laws  of  justice,  until  legal  power  compels 
it  to  earn  its  daily  bread.  "  If  any  man  will  not  work, 
neither  shall  he  eat."     [Applause.] 

The  better  and  the  worse  class  of  the  poor  are 
always  with  us,  and  we  need  a  machine  for  sifting 
the  worthy  from  the  unworthy.  Will  you  be  taught 
by  experience  ?  You  think  I  am  appealing  now  to 
self-interest  merely  ;  but,  if  I  understand  my  own 
object,  I  have  no  selfish  motives  in  what  I  say.  I 
own  no  railroad  stock.  I  own  no  government  bonds. 
I  represent  no  church  or  society.  I  am  not  speaking 
for  pay  here.  You  will  find  it  very  hard  to  attack 
me  on  these  points.  [Applause.]  There  are  points 
on   which    I    can    be    attacked,    but    not    on    these. 


1 76  HEREDITY. 

We  ought  not  to  give  out  charity  miscellaneously. 
We  effect  most  with  it  when  we  put  it  for  dis- 
tribution into  the  hands  of  those  who  know  the 
people  they  are  aiding.  The  insufficient  sifting- 
machine  we  possess  already  can  and  ought  to  be 
enlarged.  There  are  employment-bureaus  in  young 
men's  associations ;  what  is  the  trouble  with  them  ? 
They  have  more  work  than  they  can  do.  There  are 
philanthropists  of  the  first  water  engaged  in  young 
men's  Christian  associations  all  over  this  land ;  and 
you  starve  them  on  pinching  salaries,  when  the  work 
in  which  they  are  engaged  in  our  great  cities  is 
almost  as  essential  as  that  of  the  police.  I  under- 
take to  say  that  the  practice  of  your  average  mer- 
chant in  Boston  is  wise  when  a  beggar  comes  to  him, 
and  he  sends  him  to  his  previous  emplo}*ers  to  bring 
a  certificate.  He  sends  him  to  the  city  missionary, 
who  ought  to  know  whether  the  man  is  a  worthy 
character  or  unworthy.  He  sends  him  to  an  employ- 
ment-bureau, and  asks,  "  What  is  the  reputation  of 
this  man  ?  "  You  need  young  men's  Christian  asso- 
ciations, Christian  unions,  employment  bureaus,  what- 
ever you  call  them,  willing  to  look  into  the  cases  of 
these  unemployed  young  men,  and  to  sift  the  worthy 
from  the  unworthy,  and  help  the  worthy.  [Ap 
plause.]  Let  us  increase  the  efficiency  of  the  sifting 
machinery  of  which  experience  has  already  proved 
the  value. 

Five  thousand  men  marching  through  this  city,  with 
a  banner  over  them  inscribed,  "  Hunger  knows  no 
law!  "    A  most  infamous  motto !     Hunger  does  know 


LOTZE   OX   THE   UNION   OF   SOUL   AND   BODY.     177 

a  law.  It  will  go  to  the  almshouse  if  it  does  not 
work.  But  why  does  it  not  work  ?  Chiefly,  I  think, 
because  of  lack  of  organization  of  the  great  philan 
thropic  sentiment  in  the  community.  You  do  not 
know  the  difference  between  the  poor  that  are  un- 
worthy, and  the  poor  that  are  worthy ;  and  you  do 
not  take  any  too  much  pains  to  find  out.  [Ap- 
plause.] The  organizations  which  have  it  for  their 
business  to  ascertain  the  difference  between  those  who 
are  wortlvy,  and  those  who  are  unworthy  to  receive 
aid,  you  allow  to  starve.  You  permit  them  to  stagger 
through  our  great  municipalities,  jeered  at  not  infre- 
quently for  their  poverty.  I  do  not  want  great  houses 
for  young  men's  Christian  associations  ;  I  would  have 
no  man  set  his  heart  upon  upholstery :  but  I  affirm 
that  these  philanthropic  agencies,  which  represent  the 
union  of  all  the  churches,  ought  to  be  re-enforced  and 
made  able  to  help  the  J'oung  man  in  the  attic,  and 
the  young  woman,  who  may  be  succeeded  in  another 
generation  by  your  daughter  or  granddaughter,  and 
who,  on  the  streets,  goes  to  Gehenna  because  you 
have  provided  no  sifting  visitation  to  ascertain  when 
a  person  really  in  need  should  be  helped. 

These  are  serious  charges  to  make  against  modern 
civilization,  but  all  through  the  world  cities  are  grow- 
ing with  oninous  rapidity.  Agricultural  labor  does 
not  require  half  the  number  of  persons  that  it  did 
before  our  agricultural  machines  came  into  use.  'In 
1840  ten  men  were  required  on  the  farm  where  one  is 
now  needed.  When  people  flock  to  cities,  when  the  un- 
cinployed  class  is  so  large  there,  and  when  the  churches 


178  HEREDITY. 

are  so  imperfectly  performing  their  duty  in  sifting 
the  worthy  pauper  class  from  the  unworthy,  strong 
charges  are  needed,  vigorous  speech  is  demanded,  to 
awaken  the  churches  to  the  support  of  the  philan- 
thropic institutions,  such  as  the  city  missionary  and 
the  young  men's  Christian  associations,  and  especially 
the  young  women's  Christian  associations,  and  all 
those  organizations  which  have  for  their  object  the 
safe  application  of  out-door  relief. 

This  city  is  one  of  the  most  generous  on  the  globe. 
Perhaps  its  philanthropic  activities  will  compare  fa- 
vorably with  those  of  any  municipality  on  which  the 
sun  shines.  Boston  has  great  local  pride  in  her 
charitable  institutions,  and  in  what  they  have  done 
for  the  deaf,  the  mute,  the  blind,  and  the  idiotic,  and 
for  every  one  that  can  come  within  the  range  of  just 
demand  upon  benevolence.  But  we  are  New  Eng- 
enders. We  are  proud  of  our  inventiveness.  Are 
we  to  be  conquered  by  the  growth  of  great  cities  ? 

Tiberius  Gracchus  in  the  air  beckons  modern  cities 
on  to  the  adoption  of  his  measure  of  relief,  —  redis- 
tribution of  the  unemployed.  He  calls  to  us  out  of 
the  unseen ;  and,  with  only  pagan  civilization  behind 
him,  puts  us  to  shame  for  our  indifference  to  those 
among  whom  belonged  He  who  had  not  where  to  lay 
his  head. 

THE   LECTURE. 

When  there  comes  together  at  noon-time  in  a  busy 
city  a  great  audience,  expecting  only  dry,  analytical 
discussions,  it  is  complimented  if  the  speaker  begins 
with  difficult  matter.     The  first  question  which  the 


LOTZE  ON  THE  UNION  OF   SOUL  AND   BODY.    179 

mystery  of  the  arrival  of  a  human  being  on  this 
planet  suggests  is,  When  did  its  soul  come  into  con- 
nection with  its  body  ?  While  we  face  that  inquiry, 
we  stand  in  the  holy  of  holies  of  modern  research ; 
and  I  shall  ask  you  to  take,  as  a  high  priest,  there, 
no  American  or  English  philosophy.  It  is  my  duty 
to  present  here  what  is  supposed  to  be  the  best 
thought  on  the  globe  within  the  range  of  our  fields 
of  investigation,  and  not  merely  the  best  on  this  side 
the  Straits  of  Dover. 

Let  me,  therefore,  outline  rapidly  before  you  Her- 
mann Lotze's  answer  to  the  question,  When  does 
the  soul  unite  with  the  body?  The  philosophy 
taught  here  is  not  always  that  of  Lionel  Beale,  noi 
that  of  Lotze.  I  used  Beale's  facts  very  largely  in 
biology;  I  used  Lotze's  philosophy  more  than  any 
other.  If  you  do  not  find  every  thing  elsewhere 
that  you  find  here,  why,  you  may  conclude  —  that  I 
have  not,  either !  But  to-day,  entering  upon  a  very 
dangerous  field  of  audacious  speculation,  I  shall  be 
representing  Lotze's  opinions  rather  than  my  own. 

1.  From  the'  idea  of  matter,  life  and  soul  cannot 
be  explained. 

2.  From  the  idea  of  spirit,  all  material  properties 
may  be  deduced. 

3.  Choose  the  latter  as  the  ultimate  substance  of 
all  things,  and  we  satisfy  the  desire  for  a  similarity 
of  character  in  all  that  exists. 

4.  Physical  phenomena  point  to  an  underlying 
being  to  which  they  belong,  but  do  not  determine 
whether  that  being  is  material  or  immaterial. 


180  HEREDITY. 

5.  Matter  is  a  form  clothing  a  supersensible  reality, 
in  itself  similar  to  the  soul. 

6.  When  matter  acts  upon  soul,  or  is  acted  upon 
by  soul,  it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  it  acts 
as  matter  through  the  physical  forces  of  its  external 
sheath ;  but  that  the  supersensible  basis  or  core  of 
matter  directly  acts  upon  and  is  acted  upon  by  the 
other  supersensible  reality,  the  soul. 

7.  The  will,  Lotze  believes,  can  produce  move- 
ments in  matter,  not  without  cause,  but  without 
cause  of  the  same  kind,  —  that  is,  without  a  pre- 
existing movement  whose  energy  is  passed  on  into 
a  new  movement. 

8.  Consciousness  is  not  a  passive  concomitant  of 
the  material  changes  in  the  nerves,  as  has  recently 
been  taught  in  Europe  and  America. 

9.  A  difference  of  substratum  transforms  heat  into 
magnetism,  or  electricity  into  heat. 

10.  If  a  physical  energy  is  transmuted  into  a 
spiritual  energy,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  suppose 
the  presence  of  a  peculiar  subject,  the  soul,  which  by 
its  peculiar  nature  produces  this  difference  on  the 
character  of  the  phenomena. 

11.  Lotze's  view,  therefore,  is  in  complete  harmony 
with  the  doctrine  of  the  correlation  and  transforma- 
tion of  forces. 

12.  The  birth  of  the  soul  is  not  the  result  of  the 
natural  course  of  things,  nor  yet  is  it  a  creation  out 
of  nothing. 

13.  The  substance  of  which  it  is  made  existed  in 
the  exhaustless  substance  of  the  Absolute. 


LOTZE   ON   THE   UNION   OP   SOUL   AND   BODY.    181 

14.  The  extended  world  of  phenomena  is  not 
distinct  from  the  domain  of  the  absolute  or  the 
spiritual  world,  whence  the  soul  comes,  but  is  pene- 
trated everywhere  by  it. 

15.  "  That  condition  of  the  natural  course  of 
things  in  which  the  germ  of  a  physiological  organism 
is  developed,  is,"  says  Lotze,  "  a  condition  which 
determines  the  substantial  reason  of  the  world  to 
the  production  of  a  certain  soul,  in  the  same  way  that 
an  organic  impression  determines  our  soul  to  the  pro~ 
duction  of  a  certain  sensation.'''' 

(Lotze,  Medicinische  Psychologic  See  the  trans- 
lation of  this  work  into  French  by  M.  Penjon,  from 
a  text  so  far  revised  and  augmented  by  Lotze  as  to 
make  the  French  better  than  the  German  edition  as 
a  final  expression  of  Lotze's  views.  See  also  articles 
by  Mr.  Blxby  in  "  The  Unitarian  Review  "  for  Feb- 
ruary and  March,  1877,  with  summaries,  a  part  of 
the  language  of  which,  under  a  new  arrangement, 
has  been  employed  in  this  analysis.  For  other  simi- 
lar statements,  see  Ubebweg,  History  of  Philosophy, 
vol.  ii.  312-341 ;  and  Eedmann,  Grundriss  der  Ge- 
schichte  der  Philosophic,  vol.  ii.  chap.  347,  11-13.) 

Suppose  that  we  have  here  [making  use  of  the 
blackboard]  two  differently  arranged  sets  of  parti- 
cles of  matter.  The  union  between  one  of  these 
masses  and  the  others  occur  at  this  middle  line.  If 
we  jar  the  particles  on  the  left  of  that  line,  and  the 
motion  of  the  atoms  crosses  the  line,  the  motion  will 
not  be  the  same  on  the  right  as  on  the  left.  Why 
not  ?     Because  the  particles  are  not  arranged  there 


182  HEREDITY. 

as  the  particles  are  on  the  other  side.  Why  is  it 
important  to  notice  that  circumstance?  We  can 
transform  heat  into  magnetism,  or  magnetism  into 
heat.  Both  are  only  modes  of  motion,  or  a  shiver 
of  the  ultimate  particles  of  matter.  You  have  here 
in  the  left-hand  figure  a  peculiar  organization  of 
matter ;  and  there,  in  the  right-hand  figure,  another 
organization.  You  find  that  heat  passing  from  this 
form  of  matter  is  transmuted  into  magnetism  in  that 
form.  The  difference  between  the  shiver  of  the 
ultimate  particles  here,  and  the  shiver  into  which  it 
is  transformed  there,  is  accounted  for  by  the  different 
organization  of  the  two  sets  of  particles.  Heat  is 
not  magnetism ;  and,  when  the  former  is  transformed 
into  the  latter,  the  difference  must  have  an  adequate 
cause.  The  transformation  is  supposed  to  be  due  to 
the  peculiar  and  different  nature  of  the  magnetic 
substratum.  We  know  that  this  different  substratum 
exists,  for  we  see  its  effects.  So,  too,  if  a  physical 
is  transformed  into  a  spiritual  energy,  it  is  undeniably- 
necessary  to  assume  the  presence  of  a  j>eculiar  sub- 
stratum, the  soul,  which  produces  this  difference  in 
the  character  of  the  phenomena.  The  latter  differ- 
ence is  one  of  almost  measureless  breadth,  and  so 
must  be  the  difference  between  the  soul  and  matter. 

Lotze  does  not  teach  that  the  motions  of  the  ulti- 
mate particles  in  the  nerves  are  transmuted  into 
thought  and  choice  and  will.  That  would  be  mate- 
lialism.  Neither  does  he  teach  that  there  are  two 
parallel  sets  of  phenomena  with  no  connection  be- 
tween them,  and  that  the  mystery  of  their  union  is 


LOTZE  ON  THE  UNION   OF  SOUL   AND  BODY.    183 

absolutely  inscrutable.  That  would  be  Herbert 
Spencer's  Nescience.  Lotze  assumes  that  matter 
and  spirit  have  a  common  origin,  and  at  the  last 
analysis  a  common  substratum.  Matter  to  Lotze  is 
visible  force.  In  his  view,  it  has  all  the  ordinary- 
qualities  which  Ave  attribute  to  matter.  It  cannot 
move  itself.  Inertia  is  one  of  its  inherent  properties. 
Faraday  was  right  when  he  said  that  inertia  proba- 
bly is  the  only  true  characteristic  of  matter.  But, 
at  the  bottom  of  all  matter,  Lotze  finds  the  absolute 
substance  from  which  every  thing  in  the  universe 
proceeds.  All  things  finite  were  created.  From 
what?  From  nothing?  No.  Is  matter  an  efflu- 
ence of  the  Divine  Mind?  In  one  sense,  yes:  in 
one  sense,  no.  God  is  not  like  matter,  but  matter  is 
a  product  of  the  omnipotent  will.  The  Divine  Omni- 
presence transcends  infinitely  all  matter  and  finite 
mind,  but  is  immanent  in  both  everywhere.  Natural 
law  is  only  the  method  of  action  of  the  will  of  Him 
who  was,  and  is,  and  is  to  come.  This  is  true  of  the 
laws  of  matter  as  well  as  of  those  of  mind.  There- 
fore his  will  underlies  the  laws  of  matter,  —  inertia, 
chemical  attraction,  cohesion,  magnetic  affinity,  — ■ 
as  surely  as  it  underlies  the  laws  of  the  soul.  He  has 
given  a  substance  to  the  soul :  he  has  given  a  sub- 
stance to  matter.  The  two  substances,  we  say,  are 
utterly  unlike.  There  is  one  thing  in  which  they 
are  common  :  they  had  the  same  origin.  [Applause.] 
If,  therefore,  as  one  of  the  propositions  I  have  put 
before  you  declares,  we  are  to  explain  how  matter 
can  have  an  influence  on  mind,  and  mind  have  an 


184  HEREDITY. 

influence  on  matter,  perhaps  we  had  better  assume 
that  the  real  core  of  matter  is  a  supersensible  reality. 
What  does  that  long  word  mean?  Something  that 
cannot  be  reached  by  the  senses.  It  is  above  our 
senses.  There  cannot  be  qualities  in  matter,  unless 
there  is  something  in  which  the  qualities  inhere. 
The  soul  too  has  its  qualities,  and  these  must  have 
something  in  which  they  inhere.  That  something  is 
immaterial.  But  what  we  call  immaterial  in  the 
soul,  and  what  we  call  supersensible  in  matter,  may 
have  at  the  bottom  one  quality.  When,  therefore, 
the  soul  acts  upon  matter,  or  matter  upon  soul,  it 
may  be  that  the  supersensible  element  in  the  one 
and  the  immaterial  in  the  other  are  brought  into 
contact.  The  likeness  of  the  supersensible  and  the 
immaterial  accounts  for  the  influence  of  the  one 
upon  the  other.  It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that 
chemical  affinities,  regarded  simply  as  such,  are  trans- 
muted into  thought.  Lotze  rejects,  in  the  name  of 
the  scientific  method,  every  form  of  the  mechanical 
theory  that  leaves  us  to  conclude,  that,  when  the 
body  is  dissolved,  the  soul  is  no  more. 

Must  I  venture  an  illustration  to  make  these 
abstruse  thoughts  clear?  There  is  a  substratum  in 
soul.  There  is  a  substratum  in  matter.  When  mat- 
ter influences  matter,  the  act  .is  like  that  which 
occurs  when  two  gloved  hands  meet  and  clasp.  It 
is  in  one  sense  the  gloves  that  clasp,  and  in  another 
only  the  hands,  the  living  forces  beneath.  But, 
when  matter  and  a  soul  to  which  the  Divine  Will 
has  given  individuality  influence  each  other,  we  have 


LOTZE   ON   THE   UNION   OF   SOUL  AND   BODY.    185 

a  gloved  hand,  matter,  meeting  an  ungloved  hand,  — 
the    soul.     You   say  that   the  glove  presses  on  the 
ungloved  hand.     What  3rou  mean  is  that  the  hand  in 
the  glove  presses  the  hand  that  is  without  a  glove. 
[Applause.] 

As  I  defend  with  few  modifications  Lotze's  phi- 
losophy, there  .will,  of  course,  be  partisan  attack  on 
this  lectureship  from  all  quarters  of  the  Spencerian 
sky.  It  means  almost  nothing,  partisan  praise  or 
blame.  Strong  support  and  strong  opposition  will 
come.  A  few  Spencerian  critics  assume  that,  as  to 
what  this  platform  has  said  of  Spe-ncer,  it  thunders 
all  around  the  sky.  It  thunders  onty  in  a  few  por- 
tions of  the  hurt  Spencerian  and  Darwinian  sky, 
which  is  by  no  means  the  whole  of  the  firmament. 
A  little  of  that  sky  is  sometimes  found  behind  Or- 
thodox mountain-ranges.  [Applause.]  But  I  shall 
prove  to  you  that  I  intend  to  mislead  nobody;  I 
shall  offer  some  evidence  that  no  attack  has  been 
made  that  is  more  than  a  Chinese  noise  of  gongs, 
instead  of  the  real  thunder  from  the  sky;  I  shall 
prove  to  you  my  sincerity,  at  least  —  by  asking  you 
to  read  all  the  attacks!  [Applause.]  Study  them 
carefully.  We  are  here  as  students.  Nobody  will  be 
more  glad  to  have  faults  pointed  out  than  I :  never- 
theless I  must  assert,  in  the  name  of  candor  and 
straightforwardness,  that  the  attack  which  seems  to 
be  made  the  bell-wether  for  all  others  is  the  one  that 
I  am  the  most  anxious  to  have  you  read.  [Ap- 
plause.] If  that  attack  is  the  best  that  can  be 
made,  there  is  no  great  risk  to  be  run  in  defending 


186  HEREDITY. 

a  sound  philosophy  here.  The  writer  founds  an 
accusation  of  pantheism  upon  a  citation  which  ex- 
pressly asserts  the  Divine  transcendency  over  all 
natural  laws.  As  proof  that  it  has  been  asserted 
here  that  "natural  law  and  God  are  one,"  he  cpiotes 
language  which  explicitly  affirms  that  "He  whom  we 
dare  not  name  transcends  all  natural  laws  ; "  that  is, 
that  God  and  natural  law  are  not  one.  I  have  in 
my  possession  written  proof  that  Agassiz  made  the 
same  suggestion  concerning  parthenogenesis  as  that 
which  was  made  here.  Bishop  Butler  does  not  seem 
to  this  writer  orthodox  company.  He  has  no  words 
of  respect  for  Beale  or  Ulrici  or  Lotze.  He  under- 
rates very  curiously  the  great  value,  in  the  conflict 
with  materialism,  of  the  recent  advances  of  knowl- 
edge in  the  field  of  microscopical  research  concern- 
ing living  tissues.  He  overlooks  entirely  the  dis- 
tinction drawn  here  between  life,  vitality,  and  soul, 
and  then  proceeds  to  make  injurious  inferences  con- 
sistent with  this  oversight.  Not  one  important  error 
of  biological  fact  is  pointed  out.  He  cites  discus- 
sions of  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  to  justify  the 
neglect  of  some  of  the  most  honored  results  of  Ger- 
man philosophy,  based  on  new  investigations  of  the 
last  twenty  years.  Even  in  this  way  of  episode, 
however,  and  by  side  blows  with  the  left  hand,  I 
am  not  about  to  defend  myself ;  for  I  need  make  no 
reply  to  that  attack,  except  this  —  read  it.  I  could 
put  before  you  evidence  here  that  every  word  this 
lectureship  has  indorsed  concerning  the  downfall  of 
Huxley's  Bathybius  as  a  biological  celebrity  is  true. 


LOTZE   ON   THE   UNION   OF   SOUL   AND   BODY.    187 

If  any  of  you  will  study  the  original  documents,  you 
will  be  satisfied.  Read  Hackel's  attempted  defence 
of  the  Bathybius  in  a  late  number  of  the  "American 
Popular  Science  Monthly,''  in  which  he  admits  that 
Huxley  has  changed  his  views,  and  that  "from  being 
a  biological  celebrity,  Bathybius  has  tumbled  down 
into  the  gloomy  Hades  of  mythology."  Even  the 
crudely  Spencerian  New  York  "  Nation "  does  not 
attempt  to  defend  Bathybius.  As  to  another  point 
of  partisan  criticism,  let  me  say  that  one  of  the  fore- 
most literary  gentlemen  in  New  England  has  author- 
ized me,  in  writing,  to  assert  that  he  knows  the 
person  who  heard  Thomas  Carlyle  make  certain 
famous  remarks  cited  here  as  to  Darwin.  [Ap- 
plause.] Too  much  has  been  said  in  the  "  Popular 
Science  Monthly  "  about  the  inaccuracy  of  the  infor- 
mation obtained  by  Boston  concerning  this  piece  of 
literary  history,  but  Boston  and  Ruskin  happen  to 
agree  as  to  these  words  of  Carlyle.  If  I  were  at 
'liberty  to  mention  the  name  of  the  literary  gentle- 
man who  authorized  me  in  his  letter  thus  to  use 
his  knowledge,  I  should  convince  you  at  once  that, 
on  this  point,  there  has  been  here  no  speaking  at 
random. 

Support  from  partisan  sources  means  nothing  to 
me  ;  and  attack  from  partisan  sources,  almost  noth- 
ing. But  when  a  man  who  has  opposed  all  his  life 
propositions  which  are  dear  to  me,  a  man  like  the 
Plummcr  Professor  of  Harvard  University,  comes 
forward  again  and  again,  and  indorses  the  general 
discussion  here ;  when  a  man  like   the  revered  ex- 


188  HEREDITY. 

president  of  Harvard  University,  who  has  opposed 
all  his  life  propositions  very  dear  to  most  of  us, 
indorses  this  lectureship ;  when  the  Dean  of  Can- 
terbury, and  "  The  London  Quarterly  Review,"  and 
"  The  Princeton  Review,"  and  "  The  Bibliotheca 
Sacra,"  —  I  beg  pardon,  I  am  making  a  sad  ado 
over  nothing,  —  come  forward,  and  support  an  ex- 
periment, a  novelty,  —  I  think  that  these,  too,  are 
signs  of  the  times ;  and  that,  in  the  sky  behind  the 
sky,  there  is  a  little  thunder  also.     [Applause.] 

Lotze's  doctrine  is  in  perfect  conformity  with  the 
modern  theory  of  the  conservation  of  force ;  and  yet 
he  never  teaches  that  the  motions  of  matter  are 
transmuted  into  thought.  Matter  and  spirit  act 
upon  each  other  through  the  supersensible  reality 
which  is  in  each.  Lotze  of  course  rejects  what 
Hackel  calls  Monism,  or  the  hypothesis  that  there  is 
but  one  substance  in  the  universe,  with  such  proper- 
ties that  we  can  explain  by  it  both  matter  and  spirit. 
He  distinguishes  between  the  soul  and  the  vital  force* 
He  affirms  that  the  attempt  to  transform  mental  and 
moral  science  into  a  physical  natural  science  is  "a 
mere  manner  of  speaking,  signifying  nothing ;  or  else 
is  equivalent  to  the  pretence  of  understanding  by 
the  eyes,  and  seeing  by  the  ears."  He  rejects  the 
form  of  materialism  defended  by  Professor  Bain,  and 
which  asserts  that  matter  is  a  double-faced  some- 
what, having  a  spiritual  and  physical  side. 

The  distinction  between  the  philosophy  of  Lotze 
and  that  of  Hackel  and  Bain  is  a  subject  worthy  of 
the  attention  of  all  scholars ;  for  the  subtler  forms  of 


LOTZE  ON  THE   UNION   OF   SOUL  AND   BODY.     189 

modern  thought  are  crystallizing  around  Lotze  and 
twenty  other  names  which  represent  similar  ranges 
of  investigation,  and  are  departing  more  and  more 
from  Bain  and  Hiickel.  Audiences  do  not  often  in 
this  country  give  the  ear  you  have  given  in  Boston 
to  this  discussion ;  and,  therefore,  here  in  Boston  this 
audience  is  calling  attention  to  these  themes  for  the 
whole  country. 

Hackiel's  Monism,  which  is  one  of  the  many  forms 
of  materialism,  sinks  soul  in  matter.  Not  so  the 
subtler  procedures  of  Lotze,  not  so  Ulrici,  not  so 
Schoberlein.  We  have  an  accredited,  I  had  almost 
said  now  firmly  established,  scheme  of  thought  recog- 
nizing the  laws  contained  in  the  fifteen  propositions 
I  have  read  to  you,  and  asserting,  in  their  name,  the 
possible  existence  of  the  soul  in  separation  from  the 
body. 

When  does  the  soul  originate?  Lotze  would  not 
have  you  think  of  the  immaterial  world,  the  Unseen 
Holy  beyond  us,  as  separated  from  the  visible  uni- 
verse. Souls,  according  to  Lotze,  do  not  come  into 
the  world  from  afar.  They  are  not  rained  down  out 
of  some  inaccessible  region  of  the  universe.  They 
originate  in  God,  who  is  not  far  from  every  one  of 
us.  He  is  omnipresent ;  and,  wherever  he  is,  there  is 
the  capability  of  creation. 

Soul  meets  its  organism  whenever  and  wherever 
God  calls  that  organism  into  existence.  It  is,  accord- 
ing to  Lotze,  a  being  which  from  its  characteristic 
nature  is  in  immediate  relation  with  the  co-ordinat- 
ing centres  of  the  nervous  organism  and  with  what 
goes  on  in  them. 


190  HEREDITY. 

When  God  creates  germinal  matter,  to  be  used  as 
the  basis  of  the  career  of  an  individual  human  life, 
he,  out  of  the  omnipotent  power  of  the  universe, 
brings  into  existence  what  we  call  the  gloved  hand, 
or  bioplasm ;  then  he  locks  with  it  an  immaterial  or 
ungloved  hand,  which  we  call  the  soul.  The  two 
hands  come  into  existence  together.  Lotze  denies 
the  theory  of  the  pre-existence  of  the  soul.  But  the 
ungloved  hand  does  not  depend  for  its  existence  on 
the  gloved  hand.  We  talk  of  matter  as  if  it  were  a 
hand,  and  not  a  glove  with  a  hand  in  it.  So  far  as 
matter  is  inert,  it  is  a  glove  only.  This  glove  may 
be  taken  off.  The  supersensible  reality  at  the  core 
of  it,  the  spirit,  is  God,  and  is  indestructible.  That 
supersensible  reality,  the  glove  taken  off,  may  lock 
in  with  the  other  hand,  and  thus  the  Divine  spirit 
and  the  soul,  which  the  Spirit  has  created  and  up- 
held, the  flesh  dropped,  the  glove  thrust  away,  exist 
forever  locked  together.     [Applause.] 


vrn. 

THE   TWOFOLD   IDENTITY   OF   PARENT  AND 

OFFSPRING. 


THE    NINETY-EIGHTH     LECTURE    IN    THE     BOSTON 
MONDAY   LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED   IN 
TREMONT    TEMPLE,   JAN.    28. 


The  facts  of  psychical  heredity  make  it  very  highly  prohahle 
that,  could  we  reach  the  initial  point  of  the  individual  life,  we 
should  there  find  an  independent  germ  of  personality  which  can- 
not he  determined  from  without,  inasmuch  as  it  precedes  all  ex- 
ternal determination. —Wundt:  Mcnschen-und  Thierseele,  ii.  41G. 

Man  is  all  symmetrie, 
Full  of  proportions,  one  limbe  to  another, 
And  all  to  all  the  world  besides: 
Each  part  may  call  the  farthest,  brother: 
For  head  with  foot  hath  private  amitie, 
And  both  with  moons  and  tides. 

George  Herbert:  Man, 


VIII. 

THE   TWOFOLD   IDENTITY   OF  PARENT 
AND   OFFSPRING. 

PRELUDE  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

In  a  letter  to  the  historian  Tacitus,  the  younger 
Pliny  says  that  when  the  volcanic  ashes  and  cinders 
which  covered  Pompeii  were  shooting  upward  in 
deluges  from  the  throat  of  Vesuvius,  and  were  falling 
on  his  own  head  in  the  dense,  unnatural  darkness,  he 
thought  that  the  end  of  the  world  had  come,  and 
that,  very  possibly,  there  were  no  gods.  His  uncle, 
the  elder  Plin}r,  was  killed  by  a  whiff  of  sulphur 
rising  from  a  rift  near  a  sailcloth  on  which  he  had 
lain  down  to  rest  on  the  shore  of  the  bay  of  Naples. 
(Pliny,  book  vi.,  letters  16  and  20.)  Many  a  college 
undergraduate,  when  passing  through  the  early 
awakening  of  his  intellectual  life,  has  a  storm  of 
questions  fall  upon  him  like  Vesuvian  ashes  and 
darkness  ;  and  he  very  often  concludes,  with  Pliny, 
that  there  are  no  gods,  and  that  the  end  of  the  work] 
lias  come.  When  you  pray,  next  Thursday,  for  col- 
leges, remember  callow  sceptics,  honest  young  men, 
who  can  ask  more  questions  than  they  can  answer, 


194  HEREDITY. 

but  who,  in  the  heated  darkness  of  the  first  eruption 
of  intellectual  freedom,  conclude  too  early  that  all 
settled  opinions  are  to  be  given  up  inside  the  domain 
of  religious  truth,  that  the  final  hour  of  established 
systems  has  at  last  struck,  and  that  perhaps  within 
the  range  of  the  firmament  of  faith  there  are  no  gods. 
The  transitional  state  of  culture  very  rarely  under- 
stands itself  to  be  transitional.  Its  lack  of  self- 
knowledge  in  this  particular  is  a  most  subtle  mis- 
chief. Had  Pliny  understood  that  on  the  Apennines 
the  sun  was  shining,  that  the  Mediterranean  and  the 
great  deep  were  gleaming  under  an  unobscured  noon, 
he  might  have  been  at  peace  although  encompassed 
with  perils.  But  the  most  dangerous  thing  to  do 
while  any  eruption  of  this  sort  is  in  progress  is  to 
catch  breath  from  the  sulphur-fumes  of  bad  habits, 
to  lie  down  on  some  sailcloth  of  indolence,  and  take 
a  whiff  from  the  nether  regions.  Occasionally  the 
undergraduate  does  that,  and  suffers  the  fate  of  the 
elder  Pliny.  Sometimes  galvanized  corpses,  that 
have  inhaled  gross  and  noxious  volcanic  vapors, 
strut  through  our  professions  several  years ;  but  we 
finally  ascertain  that  they  are  dead  men,  and  do  not 
look  to  them  for  the  initiation  of  reform.  Books  that 
have  in  them  spiritual  as  well  as  intellectual  power 
do  not  come  from  men  who  in  college  have  followed 
the  elder  Pliny  in  breathing  sulphur.     [Applause.] 

We  must  remember  the  wise  proverb,  however, 
that,  when  inquiry  is  shut  out  at  the  door,  doubt 
comes  in  at  the  window.  It  is  a  necessary  infelicity 
in  our  college  courses,  that  they  awaken  intellectual 


IDENTITY  OF  PARENT  AND   OFFSPEING.       195 

inquiry  on  all  topics,  and  cannot  fully  satisfy  it  on 
any.  There  is  not  time  enough  in  an  undergraduate 
course  to  quench  the  intellectual  thirst  which  the 
culture  given  there  is  intended  to  produce.  One 
does  not  learn  history  in  college,  nor  politics,  nor 
law,  nor  medicine,  so  much  as  the  right  method  of 
learning  them ;  and  least  of  all  is  there  time  to  settle 
the  great  problems  in  ethics  and  Christian  apolo- 
getics. The  young  man  must  be  taught,  however, 
that  he  is  free  to  make  full  inquiry  ;  and,  unless  it 
be  insisted  on  that  he  shall  make  this  for  himself,  the 
probability  is  that  his  mental  unrest  will  be  increased 
from  some  suspicion  on  his  part  that  inquiry  is 
thought  by  his  instructors  to  be  dangerous. 

The  only  precaution  I  ask  for  is,  that  men  will 
enter,  not  only  upon  free,  but  upon  full  inquiry ;  not 
only  upon  special  investigation,  but  upon  all-sided 
investigations  as  to  Christian  apologetics.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

In  most  of  our  colleges  there  is  a  tendency  to 
push  all  professional  learning  upward  into  profes- 
sional schools.  We  are  crowding  out  of  college 
courses  much  matter  downward  upon  the  preparatory 
schools;  and  we  are  crowding  matter  upward  into 
the  theological,  and  legal,  and  medical  institution... 
Thus  it  is  a  result  of  the  narrowness  of  the  time  in  a 
four-years'  course,  that  we  have  very  many  men  who 
have  been  through  college,  who  do  not  know  any- 
thing more  of  theology  than  of  law  and  medicine.  It 
is  not  expected  they  should.  It  is  not  the  business 
of  a  four-years'  course  to  make  a  man  a  physician,  a 


196  HEREDITY. 

lawyer,  or  a  theologian.  Fools  dream  that  any  man 
who  has  been  through  college  can  of  course  settle 
every  problem  inside  the  range  of  religious  science, 
although  you  would  not  trust  him  a  moment  within 
the  range  of  legal  or  medical  science  !  [Applause.] 
So  immense  is  the  interest  of  philosophical  and  theo- 
logical topics,  however,  that  nearly  every  awakened 
mind  presses  into  these  fields ;  and  yet,  until  a  stu- 
dent has  passed  through  a  certain  amount  of  special 
training,  he  is  no  more  fit  to  give  personal  auto- 
cratic opinions  as  to  philosophy  and  theology  than 
concerning  law  and  medicine.  Look  at  religious 
truth  scientifically  before  you  undertake  to  give 
opinions  on  it  ex  cathedra.  Master  logic  and  the 
scientific  method  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  facts  of 
your  specialty  on  the  other,  before  you  attempt  to 
apply  the  former  to  the  latter.  A  professional  train- 
ing will  be  none  too  long  or  thorough  to  make  you 
experts  and  authorities  in  medicine  and  law;  nor 
will  it  be  to  make  you  such  in  theology. 

Sometimes,  in  the  late  springs,  the  herds  starve 
while  waiting  for  the  grass  to  grow.  This  hunger  of 
waiting  for  the  fat  clover  of  culture  through  slow 
vernal  seasons  is  the  most  melancholy  circumstance 
of  many  college  lives.  Let  an  hour  a  day  be  given 
to  feeding  3-0111*  sours  soul  as  best  you  ma3'.  In 
the  end  3-011  will  obtain  most  food  by  sharpening 
well  the  sickles  with  which  3-ou  are  to  forage  for  it 
among  the  harvests  of  professional  life.  Faithful- 
ness to  all  the  college  studies  sends  one  into  the 
brown  wheat-fields  at  last  with  reaping-machines  of 
the  first  order. 


IDENTITY   OF   PAEENT  AND   OFFSPEING.        197 

It  is  a  common  and  just  complaint,  that  profes- 
sional training  in  our  century  is  too  often  one-sided 
and  narrow.  Specialists  all  men  must  be  who  suc- 
ceed, but  they  who  succeed  best  will  be  specialists 
and  more.  Much  of  our  education  builds  an  arc, 
and  not  the  whole  circumference,  of  culture.  Only 
whole  wheels  will  roll.  [Applause.]  Wherever  we 
leave  out  an  arc  in  our  culture,  there  is  likely,  as  the 
wheel  rolls,  to  be  a  halt  some  day.  If  a  great 
university  thinks  it  may  be  wholly  secular,  and 
teach  nothing  concerning  religious  truth,  ignoring 
the  loftiest  faculties  of  man,  then  I  say  that  univer- 
sity is  not  building  circles  of  culture,  but  rockers. 
[Applause.]  This  age  is  a  babe  that  goes  in  a  cradle 
on  wheels,  and  no  longer  in  one  on  rockers.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Except  the  large  culture  of  the  higher  powers  of 
the  soul,  there  is  nothing  we  need  more  to  insist 
upon  as  a  remedy  for  scepticism  than  sound  schol- 
arship. If  students  do  not  care  to  compete  with 
each  other  from  motives  of  ambition,  let  them,  from 
the  love  of  usefulness,  put  themselves  on  the  list  of 
those  who,  by  successful  competition  in  college,  have 
given  a  prophecy  of  their  success  in  the  competition 
of  subsequent  life.  Macaulay  said  once  that  the 
general  rule,  beyond  all  doubt,  was  that  the  men 
who  are  first  in  the  competition  of  the  schools  have 
been  first  in  the  competition  of  the  world. 

Who  are  some  of  the  men  now  in  public  life  in 
America  whose  college  rank  has  been  a  prophecy  of 
their  success  in  life  ?     Although  valedictorians  occa* 


198  HEREDITY. 

sionally  ruin  their  health  by  study,  or  fail  in  life  from 
lack  of  versatility  of  gifts,  I  undertake  to  affirm  that 
the  upper  quarter  of  a  college  class  usually  furnishes 
more  men  of  eminence  and  high  usefulness  than 
the  lower  three  quarters  taken  together.  The  first 
twenty  have  generally  furnished'  more  men  of  dis- 
tinction than  the  lower  eighty  in  any  one  hundred  of 
college  graduates.  I  beg  the  pardon  of  every  one 
here  who,  on  account  of  ill-health,  or  from  any  other 
cause,  may  have  dropped  behind  in  the  competi- 
tions of  a  university  course.  There  are  illustrious 
exceptions;  and  any  who  have  fallen  below  the 
first  quarter,  no  doubt,  were  geniuses  who  cannot 
be  brilliant  in  every  particular  !  I  believe  that  Mr. 
Emerson  and  Mr.  Hawthorne  did  not  lead  their 
classes  in  scholarship,  although  Mr.  Emerson  was 
class  poet,  and  Hawthorne  particularly  requested 
his  faculty  that  he  might  not  receive  a  part  at  com- 
mencement. But  of  the  graduates  of  Harvard 
between  1800  and  1850,  who  have  obtained  renown, 
how  many  ranked  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  class  to 
which  they  belonged  ?  Four-fifths.  Examining  sta- 
tistics which  have  recently  been  collected  very  pains- 
takingly by  Mr.  Thwing,  I  find,  that,  among  those 
now  eminent  in  America,  President  Woolsey  in  1820 
took  the  first  honors  of  his  year.  President  Eliot  in 
1853  was  one  of  the  first  scholars  of  his  class.  Presi- 
dent Porter  in  1831  had  the  third  rank.  President 
Seeley  in  1853  had  one  of  the  very  first  places. 
President  Smith  of  Dartmouth  took  in  1830  the 
third  rank.     President  Barnard  in  1828  had  the  sec 


IDENTITY   OF   PARENT   AND   OFFSPRING.        199 

oncl  rank.  President  Walker  in  1814  was  a  leading 
scholar  of  his  class.  President  Felton  in  1827  wag 
graduated  with  high  distinction.  President  Hill  in 
1813  was  the  second  scholar  in  his  class  at  Cam- 
bridge. Professor  Bowen,  who  leads  now  the  philo- 
sophical department  at  Cambridge,  was  the  first 
scholar  of  his  class  in  1833.  Professor  Peirce  in 
1824  excelled  his  classmates  as  much  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  mathematics  as  he  does  now  his  fellow-pro* 
fessors.  Professor  Dana  in  1833  was  the  fourth 
scholar  in  his  class.  Leonard  Bacon  in  1820  was 
the  fourth.  Professor  Tyler  of  Amherst  College  in 
1830  was  only  one-half  of  one  per  cent  behind  that 
scholar  who  afterwards  became  known  to  the  world 
as  Professor  Hackett,  and  whose  rank  at  Amherst 
in  1830  was  ninety-seven  and  one-half  per  cent  for 
the  whole  course.  It  is  well  understood  that  there 
is  no  infallibility  in  college-marks.  Who  knows 
which  was  the  better  scholar,  Tyler  or  Hackett  ? 
They  were  both  excellent  scholars,  and  have  been 
very  distinguished  men.  The  little  differences  be- 
tween the  ranks  are  not  insisted  on  in  forming  col- 
lege estimates.  Something,  however,  must  be  taken 
as  the  rule  by  which  to  rank  men,  if  you  appoint 
the  parts  according  to  the  ranking  list ;  and  so  such 
ar  apparent  injustice  may  occur  as  here.  The  gen- 
eral rule  stands,  nevertheless,  that  the  upper  quarter 
furnishes  as  many  distinguished  men  as  the  lower 
1  lire  3  quarters. 

You  say  that  these  scholars  are  all  professors  and 
piesidents,  and  were  peculiarly  influenced  in  after- 


200  HEREDITY. 

life  by  an  academical  position.  Examine  the  lists  of 
authors.  Bancroft,  Prescott,  Palfrey,  were  all  in  the 
first  quarter  of  their  classes.  Motley  had  an  excel- 
lent rank.  The  poet  Longfellow,  at  Bowdoin,  in 
1825,  was  among  the  first  three  or  four  of  his  class. 
It  is  notorious  that  the  career  of  Edward  Everett 
in  college  was  as  brilliant  as  it  was  outside  in  every 
thing  connected  with  scholarship.  Daniel  Webster 
was  probably  the  second  scholar  in  his  class  at  Dart- 
mouth in  1801.  Mr.  Evarts  was  among  the  very 
highest  at  Yale  in  1837.  Rufus  Choate  is  one  of 
the  three  who  in  a  hundred  years  have  been  gradu- 
ated at  Dartmouth  with  a  perfect  mark. 

How  do  American  colleges  compare  with  other 
universities  of  the  world?  How  many  universities 
worthy  of  the  name  have  we,  with  as  many  people  as 
Great  Britain  ?  Look  into  our  text-books,  and  where 
are  the  authorities  to  be  found  that  are  named  in  the 
foot-notes  ?  Are  they  American  ?•  Seven  out  of  ten 
of  them  are  German.  Scotch  and  English  may  add 
two  per  cent  more.  I  think  not  more  than  one  out 
of  ten  authorities  quoted  in  our  works  of  learning  is 
American.  But  we  are  an  hundred  years  old.  It  is 
more  than  two  hundred  years  since  Harvard  Univer- 
sity was  founded.  "What  was  the  spirit  which  filled 
the  souls  of  those  who  planted  learning  in  the  rocky 
soil  of  New  England?  Cotton  Mather  spoke  of 
Harvard  College  as  "  the  university  which  has  been 
to  these  plantations  what  Livy  said  Greece  was  to  all 
the  world,  Sal  Gentium,  the  salt  of  the  nations ;  the 
river,  without   the   streams    whereof   these    regions 


IDENTITY   OF   PARENT   AND   OFFSPRING.        201 

would  have  been  mere  unwatered  places  for  the 
Devil.*'  (3I'r</nalia,  vol.  ii.  p.  1.)  The  spirit  which 
founded  New-England  colleges  is  needed  to-day  to 
bring  them  up  abreast  of  the  fearful  non-academic 
competition  which  is  bursting  out  all  over  the  globe. 
Even  German  philosophy  is  divided  now  into  two 
streams,  —  academic  and  non-academic.  The  profes- 
sors must  meet  more  and  more  the  rivalry  of  men 
who  have  never  been  through  college.  The  truth  is, 
that,  in  America,  liberally  educated  men  are  subject 
to  such  a  non-academic  rivalry  that  we  need  to  say 
every  now  and  then,  very  sympathetically,  that  a 
man  is  a  man  even  if  he  has  been  through  college. 
The  difference  between  a  fool  who  has  been  through 
college,  and  a  fool  who  has  not,  is  that  the  former 
usually  knows  that  he  is  a  fool,  and  the  other  does 
not.  There  is  in  this  country  no  law  for  learning, 
except  that  it  shall  shine,  and  give  itself  position, 
whether  it  has  a  candlestick  to  stand  in  or  not. 
President  Woolsey  says,  "  We  have  candles,  and  no 
candlesticks."  There  is  great  need  here  of  inspirit- 
ing college  life  by  the  influences  of  home  life  and 
of  non-academic  competition,  and  by  emphasizing  the 
difference  between  first-class  and  second-class  work. 

We  might  do  well  to  cultivate  that  rare  kind  of 
reverence  which  attaches  to  university  learning  in 
Germany.  I  rode  once  into  the  city  of  Jena,  and 
was  amazed  to  find  under  many  windows  little  fix- 
tures looking  much  like  our  lawyers'  signs  outside 
their  offices,  and  bearing  the  names  of  students  who 
once  roomed  in  the  apartments  thus  marked.     Com- 


202  HEEEDITY. 

nioh-looking  houses,  with  their  stucco  fronts,  would 
be  ornamented  with  three  or  four  of  these  sisrns. 
Such  a  great  scholar  had  his  chambers  here ;  such 
another,  there.  The  people  are  proud,  of  having 
roomed,  a  student  who  acquires  high  position.  Th.^ 
government  in  Prussia  makes  entrance  upon  any 
learned  profession  conditional  upon  the  passing  of  a 
university  examination  or  its  equivalent.  Bismarck 
says  emphatically  that  the  university  in  Germany 
exists  for  imperial  purposes.  No  entrance  upon  a 
great  profession  there  without  such  a  thorough  train- 
ing as  comes  from  a  university  course,  or  from  its 
equivalent  outside  !  What  if  university  life  had  sim- 
ilar honor  here  ? 

It  is  often  affirmed  that  the  American  Congress 
has  deteriorated  in  general  intellectual  capacity  in 
the  last  fifty  years.  The  number  of  educated  men 
in  it  is  less  than  it  has  been.  The  preparation  of 
college  graduates  for  taking  part  in  thorough  discus- 
sion in  our  newspaper  press  is  not  as  complete  as  it 
ought  to  be,  and  as  it  will  be  by  and  by  when  we 
have  suffered  enough  from  inferior  newspapers.  The 
second-rate  sheets  are  maintained  better  than  the 
first-rate.  We  have  in  this  country  no  class  of  col- 
lege graduates  waiting  to  get  into  their  professions, 
who  can  produce  critical  articles  like  the  best  of 
those  known  abroad  in  nations  no  larger  than  ours. 
There  are  several  critical  weekly  journals  in  Ger- 
many and  France,  and  at  least  half  a  dozen  in  Great 
Britain,  usually  in  large  part  written  by  university 
graduates  waiting  to  win  their  way  into  their  profes- 


IDENTITY  OF   PAKENT   AND   OFFSPRING.        203 

sions,  and  better  than  any  similar  publication  we 
have  yet  produced,  not  excepting  even  one.  There 
are  five  or  six  great  professions,  —  the  law,  medi- 
cine, the  ministry,  journalism,  authorship,  science, 
philosophy.  Compare  these,  and  regard  them  as 
peers.  No  one  profession  has  a  right  to  sneer  at 
another.  But  we  have  not  in  this  country,  as  yet, 
attained  such  a  university  life  as  to  equip  newspapers, 
which  are  our  special  pride,  in  such  a  manner  that 
we  can  face  without  blushes  the  critical  journals  of 
the  Old  World.  We  have  more  newspapers  than  any 
other  nation ;  and  more  poor  ones.  We  have,  it  is 
said,  more  newspapers  than  all  the  rest  of  the  planet. 
The  American  press  excels  the  English  in  the  collec- 
tion, but  not  in  the  discussion,  of  news.  In  view  of 
the  multiplex  mischief  and  shame  resulting  solely 
from  the  deficiencies  of  our  culture,  it  is  to  be  rever- 
ently whispered  that  the  faculties  of  colleges  are  to 
be  prayed  for,  as  well  as  their  students.     [Applause.] 

THE   LECTURE. 

The  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel  at  Rome  contains 
a  picture  by  Michael  Angelo,  representing  the  crea- 
tion of  a  soul.  He  had  only  these  words  to  suggest 
the  design  of  his  painting :  "  Man  became  a  living 
spirit."  What  would  you  have  made,  had  your  task 
been  to  produce  a  picture  with  this  sentence  as  its 
only  suggestion?  Angelo  shows  us  Adam  as  a 
perfect  body,  reclining  upon  a  mountain  slope,  and 
possessing  animal  life  merely.  The  Supreme  Spirit, 
floating  in  ether  full  of  brightness,  draws  near  him 


204  HEEEDITY. 

in  human  form.  Of  course  the  figure  representing 
the  Divine  Being  must  be  a  failure,  and  perhaps 
blasphemy;  but  art  says  that,  as  a  mere  human  form, 
it  is  one  of  the  most  matchless  in  the  world.  Some 
cherubs'  faces  that  accompany  it  are  exceedingly 
noble.  This  figure  represents  the  creative  Power. 
It  extends  its  right  arm,  and  Adam  lifts  up  his  left. 
His  hand  is  lax ;  his  whole  body  is  flaccid ;  but  from 
the  Divine  finger  to  his  finger  there  passes  an  electric 
spark  of  the  Divine  likeness,  and  Adam  becomes  a 
living  soul.  A  photograph  of  that  supremely  majes- 
tic work  of  Michael  Angelo  I  keep  on  my  study-wall, 
and  I  cannot  live  with  it  out  of  sight.  Nevertheless, 
to  me  it  is  not  the  most  perfect  symbol  of  the  method 
of  the  Divine  action  in  the  creation  of  a  human 
spirit.  Better  than  that  picture  to  suggest  the  atti- 
tude of  modern  science,  would  be  one  far  older,  the 
tabernacle  in  the  wilderness  enswathed  with  a  cloud 
full  of  light,  and  having  at  one  part  of  its  interior  a 
holy  flame.  The  cloud  touching  every  part  of  the 
tabernacle  is  the  emblem  of  the  Divine  Intelligence 
acting  in  all  natural  law.  But  this  presence  is  mani- 
fested in  some  parts  of  that  tabernacle,  in  a  sense  in 
which  it  is  not  in  all  parts.  There  is  a  conscience 
in  man ;  there  is  in  the  human  soul  a  capacity  which 
does  not  exist  in  the  immaterial  portion  of  a  brute 
creature.  The  cloud  enswathes  the  slabs  and  the 
brass  and  the  curtains  of  the  tabernacle,  as  well  as 
the  holy  of  holies.  There  is  no  portion  of  the  sym- 
bol that  is  not  bathed  in  the  cloud,  and  so  there  is  no 
part  of  natural  law  that  is  not  filled  by  the  Divine 


IDENTITY   OF   PARENT   AND   OFFSPRING.        205 

Omnipresence.  In  the  conscience,  however,  and  in 
the  creation  of  the  human  spirit,  the  Divine  Presence 
is  manifested  as  it  is  not  elsewhere.  At  these  places 
a  holy  of  holies  exists,  and  in  it  is  a  holy  fire.  On 
this  theme,  as  on  so  many  others,  the  symbols  of  the 
tabernacle  are  inexhaustibly  significant.  The  cheru- 
bim stand  above  that  holy  fire,  and  look  down  upon 
what  lies  beneath  their  wings,  and  do  not  understand 
it  all.  They  know  that  this  spot  is  the  holy  of 
holies,  and  that  God  is  there ;  and  probably  ages 
hence,  when  such  illumination  shall  have  filled  the 
world  that  our  present  science  will  seem  to  be  dark- 
ness, the  cherubim  will  yet  fold  their  wings  above 
the  inmost  shrine  of  the  human  conscience,  and  say, 
"  Holy,  hoi}',  holy !  We  know  that  God  is  there." 
Mechanism  is  not  the  word  that  will  be  written  on 
that  casket  an  hundred  years  hence.  It  is  not  the 
word  written  there  to-day  under  the  eyes  of  the 
highest  scholarship.     [Applause.] 

Instead  of  answering  in  the  name  of  any  authority, 
German,  Scotch,  English,  or  American,  the  question 
as  to  the  origin  of  the  soul,  I  am  now  to  endeavor  to 
obtain  a  reply  from  the  established  facts  of  biology. 
"What  do  we  understand  of  the  process  of  the  pro- 
duction of  many  lives  from  one  ?  Stuart  Mill  asks 
us  to  make  always  a  broad  distinction  between  what 
we  positively  know,  and  what  is  yet  in  debate.  Leav- 
ing out  of  my  list  of  propositions  every  thing  doubt- 
ful, I  am  now  to  collect  and  put  before  you  only  the 
facts  as  to  which  scholarship  is  agreed  concerning 
the   origin   of    the   soul.      Facts   arranged   in    their 


206  HEREDITY. 

natural  order  suggest  their  own  explanation.  While 
we  listen  only  to  facts  which  speak  for  themselves, 
we  are  on  firm  ground. 

1.  Many  of  the  physical  organisms  of  the  lower 
forms  of  life  propagate  themselves  by  self-division. 

2.  In  a  self-divided  organism  there  is  in  the  two 
halves  physical  identity. 

Suppose  that  we  have  here  [drawing  a  figure  on 
the  blackboard]  what  Hackel  calls  a  Moneron,  one 
of  the  lowest  types  of  life,  an  animal  of  irregular 
shape,  a  mass  of  protoplasm.  It  moves.  It  feeds 
itself.  It  grows.  It  has  life.  After  it  has  grown 
to  its  natural  size,  it  constricts  itself  in  the  middle 
[illustrating  on  the  blackboard],  and  finally  falls  into 
two  portions.  Self-division  like  this  is  the  simplest 
form  of  self-multiplication  of  organisms.  There  ap- 
pears to  be  concerned  here  just  that  mysterious  prop- 
erty which  a  living  mass  of  bioplasm  exhibits  when 
we  see  it  under  the  microscope  throw  out  a  promon- 
tory, which  becomes  detached  at  last,  and  then,  as  it 
takes  up  nutriment,  goes  on  enlarging  according  to 
the  law  which  governs  its  parent. 

The  supposition  is  that  the  mass  of  bioplasm  is 
homogeneous,  or  of  the  same  qualities  throughout. 
The  promontory  it  projects  will  be  physically  of  the 
same  qualities  with  the  parent  mass!  When  that 
promontory  breaks  off,  there  will  be  in  the  island 
the  qualities  it  had  as  a  promontory.  Therefore,  be- 
tween the  island  and  the  original  mass  there  will  be 
physical  identity.  So  when  an  organism,  consisting 
of  a  homogeneous  mass  of  bioplasm,  multiplies  itself 


IDENTITY  OF  PARENT  AND   OFFSPRING.        207 

by  self-division,  the  original  organism  and  the  sub- 
divided halves  are  related  to  each  other  by  physical 
identity. 

3.  In  a  self-divided  organism,  physical  identity  is 
transmitted  by  hereditary  descent. 

Here  begins,  but  here  by  no  means,  as  Hiickel 
thinks,  ends,  the  explanation  of  the  law  that  like 
breeds  like.  Two  yet  greater  facts  are  equally  de- 
monstrable with  the  three  already  mentioned :  — 

4.  The  co-ordinating  powers  governing  the  move- 
ments of  the  two  halves  are  also  identical. 

5.  The  co-ordinating  power  is  therefore  transmit- 
ted in  hereditary  descent. 

In  our  subdivided  organism  here  [referring  to  the 
blackboard],  each  half  goes  on  acting  as  the  parent 
did,  Each  takes  up  nutriment,  and  enlarges,  and 
finally  divides,  as  did  its  parent.  These  movements 
must  have  a  cause.  The  laws  of  the  movements  are 
identical  with  the  laws  of  the  original  organism. 
The  co-ordinating  power  which  we  have  proved  to 
lie  behind  all  the  movements  of  organisms,  we  know, 
therefore,  is  transmitted  here.  Its  effects  are  visibly 
the  same  here  as  they  were  there.  The  cycle  of  life 
through  which  that  subdivided  half  passes  is  the 
same  as  that  through  which  the  parent  passed.  The 
co-ordinating  power  goes  over ;  the  physical  power 
goes  over. 

6.  Between  the  parent  and  the  germ  of  the  child, 
there  exists,  therefore,  a  double  identity,  —  the  one 
physical,  and  the  other  not  physical;  the  one  mate- 
rial, and  the  other  not  material. 


208  HEREDITY. 

7.  On  the  basis  of  this  double  identity  stands  the 
supreme  law  of  hereditary  descent,  —  that  every  or- 
ganism breeds  true  to  its  kind. 

It  is  vastly  important  that  we  should  take  these 
earliest  steps  with  great  caution,  and  be  sure  of  our 
ground  at  every  point.  "We  demonstrate  by  its 
effects  that  the  co-ordinating  power  is  transmitted 
in  hereditary  descent.  We  are  sure,  from  all  our 
previous  arguments,  that  this  co-ordinating  power 
does  not  belong  to  matter.  We  have  proved  here, 
we  think,  that  life  in  physical  organisms  is  the 
power  which  co-ordinates  the  movements  of  germi- 
nal matter.  That  co-ordinating  power  existed  as  one 
life :  now  it  exists  as  two  lives.  So  much  is  certain. 
You  say  that  it  has  divided  itself.  Very  well ;  do 
not  look  into  mysteries  to-day.  I  do  not  know  how 
one  individual  becomes  two.  The  angels  gaze  on 
that  casket,  and  do  not  understand  what  is  within  it. 
I  am  not  pretending  to  illuminate  mysteries.  What 
we  know  beyond  doubt  is  that  in  a  self-divided  or- 
ganism one  life  becomes  two  lives.  How  one  indi- 
vidual becomes  two  individuals,  science  does  not 
know.  We  know  that  one  does  become  two,  but 
not  hoiv  it  does.  When  we  examine  facts,  however, 
we  can  trace  the  action  of  this  double  identity, 
physical  and  immaterial.  This  undeniable  circum- 
stance explains  much.  Every  organism  breeds  true 
to  its  kind,  and  it  does  so  because  a  double  identity 
exists  between  parent  and  child. 

Self-multiplication  by  the  division  of  organisms 
involves    a   production    not   only  of  two  lives,  but 


IDENTITY   OF   PARENT    AND   OFFSPRING.        209 

of  twenty,  sometimes,  out  of  one.  You  may  take 
the  water -polyp  [illustrating  on  the  blackboard], 
and  chop  it  through  the  middle,  and  each  part  will 
develop  into  a  perfect  animal.  Chop  each  of  these 
through  the  middle,  and  each  half  will  develop  into  a 
perfect  animal ;  and  so  you  may  produce  from  one 
individual,  it  is  said,  forty.  Many  biologists  affirm 
that  in  some  lower  organisms  which  are  homogene- 
ous throughout  as  many  as  forty  lives  can  thus  be 
produced  from  one.  Of  course  if  you  take  a  bird 
from  a  bush  or  a  twig  from  a  tree,  you  cannot 
produce  a  whole  organism  from  any  one  part ;  al- 
though, by  the  way,  a  twig  from  a  tree  as  a  scion 
may  develop  into  a  growth  like  its  parent.  You 
must  have  one  of  the  lower  organisms  homogeneous 
throughout  in  order  to  give  to  each  segment  the 
power  of  reproducing  itself.  How  all  that  occurs, 
nobody  understands.  If  you  wish  me  to  speculate, 
I  will  say  that  the  co-ordinating  power  goes  over 
and  that  physical  identity  exists  here.  The  co-ordi- 
nating power  in  the  homogeneous  animal  is  found  in 
every  part;  and,  when  you  divide  and  subdivide  the 
organism,  the  co-ordinating  power  draws  to  itself 
from  the  outer  world  clothing  in  each  of  the  frag- 
ments, as  it  drew  to  itself  clothing  in  the  whole  ani- 
mal originally.  There  arc  two  kinds  of  ghosts,  — 
tangible  and  intangible.  Every  organism  is  a  tangi- 
ble ghost.  1  am  no  Spiritualist.  When  I  take  as  a 
guide  a  rat-hole  revelation,  it  will  be  when  the  clouds 
obscure  the  sun  at  noon.  [Applause.]  In  the  water- 
polyp  we  have  a  co-ordinating  power,  and  it  is  at- 


210  HEREDITY. 

tracting  to  itself  a  clothing.  We  subdivide  the  ani- 
mal, and  each  part  draws  to  itself  similar  clothing. 
We  do  not  suppose  that  the  co-ordinating  power  is 
increased  or  diminished.  It  was  all  in  the  original 
organism.  It  was  all  in  the  germ  of  that  animal,  and 
its  forty  lives  have  all  been  evolved  from  that  ori- 
ginal co-ordinating  power.  That  is  what  we  see. 
There  are  the  facts.  But  how  they  were  evolved,  is 
more  than  we  know.  It  is  a  mystery,  perhaps,  be- 
yond plummet's  sounding. 

8.  The  double  identity  between  the  parent  and  the 
germ  of  the  child  is  the  cause  of  the  likeness  of  the 
latter  tc  the  former. 

9.  It  is  not  physical  sameness  wliicli  accounts  for  the 
likeness  of  child  to  parent,  but  the  sameness  of  the  co- 
ordinating power. 

Many  germs  of  different  animals  are  chemically 
identical.  The  difference,  therefore,  in  their  devel- 
opment must  be  accounted  for  by  the  different  co- 
ordinating powers  behind  them.  It  is,  therefore, 
safe  to  assert,  and  it  appears  to  me  greatly  important 
to  emphasize  the  fact,  that  it  is  not  a  physical  same- 
ness which  accounts  for  likeness  of  parent  to  child, 
but  the  sameness  of  the  transmitted  co-ordinating 
power.  The  sameness  of  life  is  the  influence  which 
produces  the  likeness  between  parent  and  child,  and 
not  the  sameness  of  the  famous  firm  that  Virchow  of 
Berlin  calls  "  Carbon,  Oxygen,  &  Co.,"  —  a  firm  which, 
he  thinks,  has  failed  of  late  ! 

10.  In  the  higher  forms  of  self-multiplication,  such 
as  by  budding  and  egg-cells,  this  law  of  double  iden« 
tity  holds  good. 


IDENTITY  OF   PARENT   AND   OFFSPRING.        211 

Hackel  says  that  all  the  laws  of  self-multiplication 
in  its  higher  forms  are  involved  substantially  in  the 
simple  self-subdivision  by  which  self-multiplication 
occurs  in  the  lower  forms.  We  have  organisms  that 
multiply  by  budding,  and  by  seeds,  and  others  by 
egg-cells ;  but  at  the  last  analysis  there  is  a  physical 
identity  between  parent  and  child,  and  an  immaterial 
identity  behind  that  physical  identity.  Hackel  says 
that  laws  of  hereditary  descent  may  be  summed  up  in 
the  physical  identity  of  parent  and  child.  He  holds 
that  life  is  only  a  mechanical  action  of  molecular 
particles.  But  we  here  have  rejected  his  authority 
on  that  point.  We  hold  that  life  is  more  than  me- 
chanical action.  Hackel  affirms  (History  of  Creation, 
vol.  i.  p.  199,  American  edition)  that  "  the  life  of 
every  organic  individual  is  nothing  but  a  connected 
chain  of  very  complicated  material  phenomena  of 
motion."  Virchow  knows  better  than  that.  Lotze 
knows  better  than  that.  We  know  better  than  that. 
This  doctrine  of  Hackel's  has  lately  been  suffering 
severe  persecution  in  Germany;  and  I  shall  not  pause, 
at  the  end  of  perhaps  twenty  lectures  against  the 
mechanical  theory,  to  justify  the  definition  of  life  as 
the  co-ordinating  power  behind  germinal  matter. 

11.  Vitality,  life,  and  soul  are  to  be  carefully  dis- 
tinguished from  each  other. 

12.  In  the  higher  forms  of  self-multiplication  there 
is  vitality  in  each  of  the  two  elements  which  unite 
to  form  a  germ. 

In  the  oak,  for  instance,  we  have  self-multiplication 
by  stamen  and  pistils,  and  their  two  elements,  whicb 


212  HEREDITY. 

unite  to  form  the  acorn  and  fructify  it.  Now,  in 
each  of  these  two  parts  there  is  vitality.  Life,  as 
the  co-ordinating  power  of  the  whole  organism,  does 
not  belong  to  either  of  them  taken  alone.  Vitality 
may  belong  to  an  individual  cell,  but  not  life.  It  is 
certain,  that,  in  a  complex  organism,  you  may  destroy 
many  a  cell,  and  the  co-ordinating  power  or  plan  of 
the  whole  organism  not  change.  On  the  surface  of 
the  cellular  integument  we  lose  cells  which  possess 
vitality ;  but  life,  the  co-ordinating  power,  is  pre- 
cisely the  same,  although  you  lose  cell  after  cell  from 
the  cellular  integument,  and  from  every  other  part 
of  the  system.  From  not  making  this  distinction 
between  vitality  and  life,  the  greatest  blunders  have 
been  committed  in  biological  reasoning.  A  co-ordi- 
nating of  movements  must  occur  before  we  have 
evidence  of  the  existence  of  what  we  call  the  co- 
ordinating power. 

13.  After  the  union  of  the  two  elements,  there  is 
life ;  that  is,  a  power  co-ordinating  the  movements 
of  germinal  matter  according  to  the  laws  of  its  type. 

Does  anybody  doubt  this  ?  When  an  acorn  begins 
to  sprout,  do  you  doubt  that  there  is  in  that  acorn  a 
co-ordinating  power  which  begins  to  weave  the  oak  ? 
The  instant  the  co-ordinating  force,  which  ultimately 
prc-luces  your  king  of  the  forest,  commences  its  werk 
in  that  acorn,  life  is  there.  What  is  life?  Co-ordi- 
nating power  behind  the  movements  of  germinal 
matter.  A  structuring  power  must  exist  before  any 
thing  is  structured.  Crush  your  germinant  acorn, 
and  you  kill  an  oak.  You  perceive  that  I  am  tread- 
ing here  on  holy  ground. 


IDENTITY   OF   PARENT   AND   OFFSPRING.        213 

14.  If  the  two  parts  which  are  united  by  the 
pistils  and  stamens  of  the  flowers  of  the  oak  are 
destroyed,  that  which  is  destroyed  is  not  life,  but 
vitality. 

15.  If  an  acorn  be  destroyed  after  it  has  become 
germinant,  not  merely  vitality  is  destroyed,  but  life. 

16.  This  law  holds  good  in  all  the  higher  organiza- 
tions, not  excepting  man. 

I  am  passing  here  across  chasms  in  which  lie  dead 
men's  bones,  and  dead  women's,  not  merely  in  China, 
not  merely  among  the  seven  hills  of  Rome,  not  merely 
among  Romanists,  but  among  Protestants,  and  under 
the  shadow  of  church-spires  on  the  Christian  sward  of 
New  England.  [Applause.]  Dr.  Storer  is  the  au- 
thority for  you  to  read ;  and  a  famous  essay  of  his 
("Why  Not?"  Lee  &  Shepard,  1875),  scattered 
broadcast  over  America  by  vote  of  the  American 
Medical  Association,  I  need  only  name  to  give  suffi- 
cient emphasis  to  unspeakable  matters  here  visible, 
but  not  audible. 

17.  The  authorities  of  the  medical  profession  are 
right,  therefore,  in  speaking  of  a  certain  nameless 
crime,  or  the  destruction  of  pre-natal  life,  as  murder. 

Do  you  say  that  in  the  human  case  there  is  no  oak 
destroyed  ?  What  ?  You  affirm  that,  to  make  any 
organism  human,  there  must  be  in  it  a  soul,  and  that, 
until  a  soul  exists  in  it,  the  organism  is  merely  an 
animal.  What  makes  a  soul  ?  Memory,  conscience, 
are  essential  parts  of  the  human  spirit.  When  does 
memory  start  up  in  a  human  being?  What  are  the 
first  things  you  can  remember?     Ruskin,  there  on 


214  HEREDITY. 

one  of  the  English  lakes,  looks  under  the  arched 
roots  of  the  cedars,  and  beholds  water  gleaming  in 
the  sun.  There  began  his  conscious  life.  He  had 
no  memory  of  any  event  before  that,  or,  at  least, 
none  that  would  hold  for  his  subsequent  years.  He 
was  an  animal  until  then,  was  he?  It  would  have 
been  no  crime  to  have  killed  him  before  that,  would 
it?  Richter,  an  infant  in  the  presence  of  the  Fich- 
telgebirge,  looks  up  one  day,  and  sees  an  avalanche 
fall.  It  is  his  first  memory.  Till  then  there  was 
nothing  in  him  that  had  the  capacity  to  treasure  up 
experience  for  his  subsequent  years.  Then  began  in 
him  the  permanent  activities  of  which  we  call  mem- 
ory ;  and  a  being  is  not  possessed  of  a  soul  until  he 
is  possessed  of  a  memory,  you  say.  Kill  Richter, 
then,  any  time  before  he  attains  memory,  and  you 
have  committed  no  crime.  But,  in  order  to  have  a 
soul,  a  being  must  have  a  conscience ;  and  when  does 
a  child  acquire  moral  responsibility  ?  Law  says  when 
it  is  seven  years  of  age.  In  some  children  we  see 
the  action  of  conscience  earlier ;  but  is  there  a  de- 
veloped conscience  before  the  third  or  fourth  year? 
Now,  if  there  be  no  soul  until  there  is  a  conscience, 
kill  any  child  before  it  comes  to  a  sense  of  what  is 
morally  right  or  wrong,  and  you  have  killed  only  an 
animal.  I  dare  not  trust  myself  here  to  speak  as  the 
topic  deserves ;  but,  I  had  rather  you  would  listen  to 
the  Romish  confessional,  which  always  makes  a  crime 
of  that  which  the  highest  medical  authorities  in  the 
name  of  Dr.  Storer  have  denounced,  I  had  rather 
you  would  listen  behind  curtains  to  the  severe  doc- 


IDENTITY  OF   PARENT   AND   OFFSPRING.        215 

brines  of  the  Romish  confessional,  than  behind  the 
curtains  of  portions  of  fashionable  society  to  the 
whispered  lies  used  in  defence  of  the  ghastly  murder 
of  the  unborn  !     [Applause.] 

18.  If  a  babe  cannot  be  said  to  be  other  than  an 
animal  until  it  has  a  soul,  and  if  it  has  no  soul  until 
it  has  a  memory,  and  if  the  destruction  of  its  life  is 
not  a  crime  until  it  has  a  soul,  then  it  is  usually  no 
crime  to  take  the  life  of  an  infant  under  one  year  of 
age. 

19.  If  a  babe  that  has  no  conscience  may  be  guilt- 
lessly murdered,  then,  until  a  child  arrives  at  an  age 
of  three  or  five  years,  the  killing  of  it  is  no  crime. 

20.  By  self-division,  there  may  be  produced  from 
one  life  many  lives. 

21.  The  new  lives  are  created  by  being  evolved. 

22.  They  were  all  in  the  capacities  of  the  original 
type  of  the  co-ordinating  power. 

23.  The  power  of  matter  is  a  gift  from  God,  under 
limits  of  necessity. 

24.  The  power  of  life  in  man  is  a  gift  under  con- 
cession of  freedom. 

25.  God  is  immanent  in  mind  as  well  as  matter. 

26.  Molecular  law  may  be  the  profoundest  expres- 
sion of  the  Divine  will. 

27.  The  continuity  of  nature  is  only  the  continuity 
of  the  Divine  plan  and  its  execution. 

28.  A  thorough-going  recognition  of  the  Divine 
immanence  and  omnipresence  both  in  mind  and 
matter  is  the  only  explanation  of  the  origin  of  souls 
and  of  the  laws  of  hereditary  descent. 


216  HEREDITY. 

Our  best  symbol  of  the  origin  of  life  is,  therefore, 
not  Michael  Angelo's,  with  the  spark  passing  in  a 
mechanical  manner  from  the  creative  finger  to  the 
created  hand,  but  the  cloud  enveloping  the  tabernacle. 
The  theory  of  the  Divine  immanence  in  both  mind 
and  matter,  does  not  deny  for  an  instant  the  Divine 
transcendence  over  both.  The  creative  power  throws 
out  souls  into  the  universe  as  a  flame  throws  out 
other  flames.  It  is  not  diminished.  It  is  itself  not 
transferred.  Perfect  distinctness  between  the  ori- 
ginal life  and  the  life  which  is  kindled !  No  dimi- 
nution of  the  power  of  the  unapproachable  Flame 
which  kindles  all  finite  lives  !  A  magnet  may  create 
other  magnets,  and  yet  not  diminish  its  own  power, 
or  lose  its  separateness  from  the  powers  it  creates. 
The  magnetism  in  all  souls  is  from  God,  and  yet  dif- 
ferent from  him.  The  kindling  of  all  finite  lives  is 
God's,  although  the  flames  are  distinct  individuali- 
ties.    [Applause.] 


IX. 

SEVEN  PRINCIPAL  LAWS  OF  HEREDITY, 

THE    NINETY-NINTH   LECTURE   IN   THE    BOSTON 

MONDAY   LECTURESHIP,    DELIVERED   IK 

TBEMONT   TEMPLE,   FEB.  4. 


Upon  sight  of  beautiful  persons,  to  bless  God  in  his  creatures,  to 
pray  for  the  beauty  of  their  souls,  and  to  enrich  thern  with  inward 
graces  to  be  answerable  unto  the  outward.  Upon  sight  of  deformed 
persons,  to  send  them  inward  graces,  and  enrich  their  souls,  and  give 
them  the  beauty  of  the  resurrection. — Sir  Thomas  Browne:  Resolves 

Who  is  the  happy  husband?    He 

"Who,  scanning  his  unwedded  life, 
Thanks  Heaven,  with  a  conscience  free, 

'Twas  faithful  to  his  future  wife. 

Coventry  I'atmorb. 


IX. 

SEVEN   PRINCIPAL   LAWS   OF  HEREDITY. 

PEELUDE   ON   CUEEENT   EVENTS. 

The  able-bodied  pauper  deserves  and  seems  likely 
to  be  improved  off  the  face  of  the  earth.  Unskil- 
fully organized,  hap-hazard  Christian  philanthropy 
is  food  on  which  he  fattens. 

We  do  the  work  of  going  from  house  to  house  by 
proxy ;  and,  from  }-ear  to  year,  let  slip  the  opportu- 
nity of  obtaining  clear  ideas  concerning  the  shrewd- 
est methods  of  poor-relief.  Twenty  centuries  will 
discuss  this  topic  yet.  In  addition  to  measures  of 
colonization,  land-ownership,  and  a  re-distribution 
of  the  unemployed,  it  will  be  found  remunerative 
to  cast  a  glance  at  Elberfeld  on  the  Rhine,  and  Ger- 
mantown  on  the  Schuylkill,  where  very  successful 
experiments  have  been  made  in  the  abolition  of  able- 
bodied  pauperism. 

The  city  of  Elberfeld,  in  Germany,  is  near  Dus- 
seldurf,  and  has  at  present  a  population  of  about 
eighty  thousand  inhabitants.  By  a  judicious  system 
of  district  visitation,  it  ha?  reduced  the  number  of 

219 


a 


220  HEREDITY. 

its  paupers  from  one  in  ten  to  one  in  eighty.  To-day 
there  is  no  able-bodied  pauperism  in  Elberfeld.  Thi 
result  has  attracted  attention  in  Great  Britain,  and 
has  been  imitated  in  the  district  of  Marylebone,  in 
the  city  of  London,  with  great  success.  There  have 
been  imitations  of  it  in  New- York  City  on  a  small 
scale,  and  especially  in  German  town  in  Philadelphia. 
At  this  moment  the  most  strategic  words  concerning 
poor -relief  are  Elberfeld  and  Germantown.  In 
Boston,  Springfield,  Rochester,  and  Syracuse,  some 
imitation  has  been  commenced  of  the  Elberfeld  en- 
terprise. 

What  was  done  in  this  German  city?  Very  much 
what  Chalmers  did  in  Edinburgh,  when  he  began  his 
famous  experiment  at  the  West  Port.  The  whole 
poor-quarter  was  districted  and  sub-districted;  and 
the  rule  was  adopted,  never  to  give  out  charity  except 
when  the  reasons  for  doing  so  were  clear  to  a  committee 
of  intelligent  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  had  visited 
personally  the  cases  in  need.  One  central  regulation 
at  Elberfeld  was,  that  no  visitor  should  have  more 
than  four  families  on  his  hands.  There  were  eierh- 
teen  districts,  and  each  was  subdivided  into  fourteen 
smaller  portions.  Voluntary  aid  and  the  city  official 
relief  were  united.  Eighteen  men  were  selected  by 
the  municipal  government  to  superintend  the  dis- 
tricts; and  then  in  each  sub-district  a  number  of 
visitors  were  appointed  to  report  to  these  super- 
visors. There  were  some  two  hundred  and  fifty  vis- 
itors, men  and  women.  No  one  was  allowed  to  have 
a  burdensome  field.     Often  the  number  of  families 


SEVEN   PRINCIPAL   LAWS   OF   HEREDITY.        221 

put  down  to  one  individual  for  visitation  was  only 
two.  The  service  of  visitation  was  unpaid,  as  was 
also  that  of  general  supervision ;  but  so  was  the 
work  distributed,  that  no  busy  merchant,  no  head 
of  a  family,  no  matron  with  children  under  her 
care,  felt  burdened.  It  is  an  easy  possibility  to  lay 
out  work  on  a  scale  so  large  as  to  prevent  its  per- 
formance ;  but,  if  we  were  humbler  in  our  pro- 
gramme, probably  the  actual  work  performed,  in  the 
visitation  of  our  desolate  quarters  in  cities,  woulc1. 
be  more  searching.  Who  visited  these  places  ?  The 
best  class  of  the  community  in  Elbcrfeld.  Little  by 
little  it  came  to  be  a  mark  of  good  standing,  to  go 
down  among  the  poor,  and  attend  to  three  or  four 
families  as  a  part  of  the  duties  of  the  week.  We 
have  persons  who  will  rise  and  go  out  of  an  audience 
if  the  topic  of  poor-relief  is  introduced  too  often. 
They  are  silken,  soft  Christians,  brought  up  in 
kings'  palaces ;  and  their  religion  consists  chiefly  of 
enjoying  the  meeting  on  a  Sunday.  There  is  another 
kind  of  meeting  that  occurs  when  one  goes  about 
from  house  to  house  doing  good,  and  this  they  do 
not  enjoy.  Until  American  Christians  learn  to  do 
what  German  officials  have  taught  average  citizens 
under  the  State  Church  to  do  at  Elberfeld,  there 
will  be  no  proper  quickening  here  of  our  sense  of 
r  ponsibility  for  the  perishing  and  dangerous  quar- 
ters of  great  towns.  There  must  be  an  institution 
of  a  new  order  of  nobility.  It  was  instituted,  in- 
deed, when  our  Lord  washed  his  disciples'  feet,  and 
when  he  went  about  from  house  to  house  doing  good. 


222  HEREDITY. 


Those  who  wish  to  enter  into  that  nobility,  even 
with  our  Lord  at  its  head,  are  none  too  many,  even 
in  the  church  within  the  church.  The  very  best  of 
our  Christians  are  altogether  too  perfunctory,  distant, 
and  lavender,  in  their  touches  of  these  problems. 

What  has  been  done  in  Germantown  ?  That  is 
the  twenty-second  ward  of  Philadelphia,  and  con- 
tains twenty-five  thousand  people.  A  union  of 
ladies  and  gentlemen'  was  formed  there,  and  they 
made  it  a  rule  never  to  give  money  to  any  poor  per- 
son. Even  coal  was  distributed  cautiously.  Their 
plan  included  careful  visitation,  after  Chalmers's  prin- 
ciple, and  territorial  supervision  of  small  districts. 
They  put  fifty  visitors  at  work  under  the  general 
direction  of  nine  men  and  one  salaried  superintend- 
ent, I  regard  the  Philadelphia  experiment  as  ex- 
ceedingly suggestive  for  American  soil.  The  German 
experiment  needs  a  little  change  in  being  transferred 
to  our  country.  A  board  of  supervisors,  all  men, 
governed  a  board  of  visitors,  all  women  ;  but  the 
head  of  the  enterprise  was  Robert  Coulter,  a  salaried 
superintendent,  whose  business  it  was  to  look  into 
every  case  professionally. 

The  first  difficulty  the  Germantown  enterprise  had 
was  indiscriminate  almsgiving  at  the  doors  of  private 
houses.  Of  course,  if  we  toss  out  charity  miscella- 
neously on  the  thresholds  of  our  homes,  an  enterprise 
like  this  Germantown  Relief  Association  will  languish. 
The  ladies  who  were  visitors  had  cards  printed,  and 
distributed  among  the  households ;  and  whenever  a 
beggar  applied  at  a  private  door  his  name  was  ascer- 


SEVEN   PEESTCIPAL  LAWS   OF   HEREDITY.        223 

tained,  and  he  was  sent  to  Robert  Coulter  with  a 
ticket.  Only  a  small  percentage  of  the  cards  thus 
given  out  were  ever  presented  to  that  intelligent 
officer. 

Of  course  you  have  done  something  like  that  in 
Boston ;  but  the  trouble  is,  we  have  not  brought  the 
charities  of  all  the  religious  denominations  under  a 
common  plan  on  this  subject.  We  have  had  here 
in  Boston  seventeen  generals,  I  presume,  —  seventy, 
for  aught  I  know,  —  over  this  work  of  poor-relief. 
Let  every  church  do  its  own  business,  you  say. 
That  is  well ;  but  this  Germantown  plan  of  a  union 
of  churches  is  better.  Let  every  denomination  unite 
its  churches,  you  say.  This  plan,  which  has  been 
executed  with  considerable  thoroughness  in  most  of 
our  large  American  cities,  is  an  excellent  one ;  but 
a  better  one  would  be  for  churches  of  all  denomina- 
tions to  unite  their  purely  philanthropic  activities, 
so  that  the  able-bodied  pauper  who  cannot  get 
relief  in  one  parish  may  not  emigrate  to  another, 
and  obtain  relief  there.  The  Church  Congress  in 
New  York  lately  favored  a  central  bureau  for  church 
aid  in  poor-relief.  Of  course  there  will  be  constant 
imposition  unless  there  is  some  general  supervision 
in  such  work.  There  will  be  running  over  bounds 
by  tramps ;  and,  what  the  unprincipled  beggar  can- 
not get  at  one  door,  he  will  find  at  another.  Some 
churches,  too,  are  not  efficient ;  and  it  will  be  very 
hard  to  supply  a  city  equally  with  benevolent  visita- 
tion and  relief  under  the  plan  of  letting  each  church 
act  by  itself. 


224 


HEREDITY. 


Some  think  that  the  churches  of  the  evangelical 
denominations  are   not   benefited   by   union,  if  the 
organization   representing  the   union    looks    like    a 
supplementary  body.    But  the  palm  needs  the  fingers, 
and  these  are  not  a  separate  palm.     The  benevolent 
associations  which  take  care  of  missions   on    other 
shores  are  fingers  to  the  palm  of  the  church;   the 
benevolent    associations    which    take    care    of    the 
orphans  and  the  blind  and  the  deaf,  all  at  the  bot- 
tom unite  with  the  church,  and  are  only  fingers  to 
its  palm.     They  are  in  no  sense  rivals.     So  our  em- 
ployment bureaus,  and  young  men's  Christian  asso- 
ciations, are  in  no  sense  rivals  of  the  church.     I  am 
not   defending   the   idea   of    erecting   young   men's 
Christian  associations  into  separate  churches,  or  of 
making  them  or  any  other  union  organization  in  any 
particular  independent  of  the  body  of  God's  house, 
any  more  than  the  fingers  are  independent  of  the 
palm.     The  advocacy  of  such  separation  is  all  brush- 
fire  talk,  and  amounts  to  nothing.     When  an  Amer- 
ican evangelist  is  accused   of  holding  the  idea  of 
forming    a    new   ecclesiastical    order,    and   erecting 
young  men's    Christian   associations   into    churches, 
the  charge  is  only  a  specimen  of  copperhead  attack 
of  a  man  who  has  foes  enough  ahead  of  him.     [Ap- 
plause.] 

There  is  a  necessity  for  a  union  not  only  of 
churches  of  one  denomination,  but  of  all  the  leading 
denominations,  if  we  are  to  have  any  thing  like  the 
Elberfeld  plan  or  the  Germantown  carried  out.  One 
of  the  results  effected  at   Philadelphia  was   a  very 


SEVEN   PEIXCIPAL   LAWS   OF   HEREDITY.       225 

careful  ascertainment  of  the  histor}r  of  individual 
cases,  and  a  registration  of  the  persons  relieved  or 
applying  for  aid.  A  tramp  soon  becomes  known  if 
there  is  a  union  between  the  churches.  His  record 
is  understood  in  all  parts  of  the  city  by  being  under- 
stood at  the  central  agency.  If  there  is  no  union  of 
the  churches,  a  cheat  in  one  parish,  found  out,  may 
usually  become  a  successful  cheat  in  another  parish 
which  has  no  intelligence  of  what  its  neighbors  have 
ascertained. 

In  this  Germantown  relief  enterprise,  evidence 
accumulates,  that,  outside  of  poorhouse  relief,  not 
more  than  two  dollars  an  individual  has  been  re- 
quired among  those  assisted  annually  by  that  work. 
Not  more  than  eleven  dollars  expense  a  year  for  a 
family  has  been  incurred  since  that  Germantown 
experiment  began.  None  of  this  expense  is  given 
out  in  cash.  It  is  all  supplied  in  tea  and  clothing, 
and  occasionally  coal  and  other  necessary  articles. 
Visitation  among  the  poor,  to  be  effective,  must  be- 
come skilled  labor.  Such  it  has  become  in  Elber- 
feld  and  Germantown.  The  vote  of  one  visitor,  with 
that  of  the  superintendent,  is  necessary  to  the  giving 
of  any  supply  in  the  Philadelphia  experiment.  The 
judicial  principle  in  charity  has  been  applied  in 
Germantown  as  in  Elberfeld.  The  visitors  have 
learned  to  give  not  so  much  money  as  themselves, 
and  to  make  a  business  of  this.  The  results  in  the 
American  have  been  as  encouraging  as  those  in  the 
German  field.  Very  often  the  moral  influence  of 
the  visitor  has  drawn  into  lives  of  endeavor  and  thrift 


226  HEREDITY. 

those  who  had  almost  taken  up  the  career  of  pillage 
under  the  name  of  penury.  Again  and  again  relief 
has  been  prevented  from  becoming  a  mischief  be- 
cause given  out  indiscriminately  at  thresholds.  A 
tramp  called  at  a  Philadelphia  door,  and  said  his  wife 
was  dying,  and  that  she  had  no  medicine,  food,  or 
clothing.  "  Give  him  a  card."  —  "  No,"  said  one  of  the 
ladies:  "his  tone  proves  his  sincerity;  we  must  help 
him  now."  —  "  That  card  will  do  me  no  good,"  said 
the  tramp :  "  I  have  three  like  it  in  my  pocket 
already.  Why  can't  you  help  a  poor  man?"  The 
gentleman  of  the  house  came  out :  "  Why  are  not 
your  cards  attended  to  ?  I  am  a  member  of  the  re- 
lief board,  and  I  will  go  with  you,  and  see  about 
this."  He  went  with  the  man  to  the  central  agency, 
and  found  that  he  was  a  person  just  out  of  the  peni- 
tentiary, and  had  no  wife  in  this  country,  and  that 
his  history  was  well  known  to  the  police.  The 
tramp  did  not  dare  present  his  cards  to  the  superin- 
tendent. 

Of  course  those  who  most  need  help  are  often 
those  who  never  apply  for  it ;  and  until  we  go  from 
house  to  house,  each  with  a  little  field,  and  not  merely 
by  proxy,  there  will  be  no  ascertaining  the  wants  of 
those  who,  like  a  widow  I  heard  of  in  the  North  End 
last  winter,  went  through  two  days  of  a  fearful  storm 
similar  to  that  which  has  just  swept  the  country,  and 
without  a  fire,  and  with  but  one  meal  in  the  forty- 
eight  hours.  When  she  was  found  at  last,  her  little 
daughter  was  lying,  not  dead,  but  white  with  hunger 
and  cold ;  and  the  woman  was  the  wife  of  a  minister, 


SEVEN   PRINCIPAL   LAWS    OF   HEREDITY.        227 

and  had  been  thrown  into  that  condition  by  bereave- 
ment, and  by  her  pride  in  refusing  to  ask  for  any 
assistance.  How  are  you  to  find  out  these  cases 
unless  there  is  searching  district  visitation  ?  And 
where  are  the  slippered  mesdames  and  the  soft,  vel- 
vet}' mesdemoiselles  that  anywhere  in  this  city  call 
themselves  Christians,  and  do  not  feel  honored  to 
enter  into  competition  with  each  other  in  work  of 
that  nobility?     [Applause.] 

After  all,  we  must  unite  three  great  spirits  if  we 
are  to  solve  this  problem.  Tiberius  Gracchus  must 
attend  to  the  re-distribution  of  the  unemployed ; 
then  George  Peabody  had  better  build  lodging- 
houses  ;  and,  lastly,  Thomas  Chalmers  must  whisper 
to  us  renewed  enthusiasm  concerning  his  schemes. 
These  were  really  better  than  those  of  Elberfeld  or 
Germantown.  It  is  fashionable  now  to  talk  about 
Germantown  and  Elberfeld ;  but  there  is  one  great 
measure  they  leave  out,  which  Chalmers  employed, 
—  that  of  self-supporting  churches  among  the  poor. 
But  that  measure  ought  to  be  courageously  imitated. 
Until  the  poor  are  taught  to  diffuse  conscientiousness 
among  themselves,  until  there  is  a  training  of  these 
children  in  the  gutters  up  to  better  principles  than 
their  fathers  and  mothers  have  had,  until  the  poor 
become  self-respecting,  by  doing  something,  however 
little,  in  the  support  of  moral  instruction  in  their 
midst,  we  have  not  done  for  them  what  can  be  done. 
That  West  Port  experiment  in  Edinburgh  seems  to 
me  altogether  the  most  suggestive  that  ever  has  been 
performed,  because  it  included  not  only  the  measure 


228  HEREDITY. 

of  searching  visitation,  not  only  judicial  discrimina- 
tion in  charity,  not  only  the  principle  of  skilled  labor 
there,  but  also  the  idea  of  self-supporting  religious 
institutions. 

Thirty  thousand  people  in  the  North  End  of  Bos- 
ton are  crushed  into  less  than  three-quarters  of  a 
square  mile.  Take  Lynn,  or  Salem,  with  about  this 
number  of  inhabitants,  and  with  its  beautiful  parks 
and  wholesome  grounds  around  private  residences, 
and  crush  the  city  together  little  by  little.  First 
the  parks  go  ;  then  the  grounds  go  ;  then  the  stables 
come  near  to  the  thresholds ;  finally  you  have  the 
gutters  close  under  the  windows.  Sprinkle  in  your 
gin-shops,  make  the  whole  place  peppery  and  measly 
with  the  unreportable  quarters  of  vice,  and  then  let 
children  be  born  there,  and  you  have  the  North  End. 
But  this  North  End  has  in  it  certain  self-supporting 
religious  institutions,  or  would  like  to  have,  —  some 
have  been  begun  there,  —  and  what  does  Boston  do  ? 
Starves  them !  Chalmers  stands  above  us,  and 
Prince  Albert  and  George  Peabody  and  Tiberius 
Gracchus,  and  look  on ;  while  Boston,  the  easiest- 
managed  city  of  its  size  on  this  continent,  calls  her 
self  abreast  of  the  times. 

On  the  coast  of  North  Carolina,  the  cold  dead 
bodies  have  hardly  been  picked  up  yet  from  a  late 
shipwreck.  I  was  in  Philadelphia  to  lecture  last 
week;  and  there  men  stood  before  the  office  of  Col- 
lins, whose  ship  had  gone  down.  The  workingmen 
had  their  hats  in  their  hands,  humbly  postured,  ask- 
ing for  work   at  the  hazard  of  a  voyage  like  that 


SEVEN   PRINCIPAL   LAWS   OF    HEREDITY.       229 

which  had  brought  death  to  their  comrades.  Women 
were  on  their  knees  imploring  information  as  to  their 
husbands  or  sons.  No  news  had  come  up  out  of  the 
surly  deep.  The  ship  had  gone  out  overloaded  or 
unseaworthy.  Some  conscientious  New  York  gov- 
ernmental official  had  given  her  the  usual  certificate 
that  she  was  fit  to  go  to  sea;  and  she  went  to  the 
bottom.  Nevertheless,  there  stood  these  working- 
men,  and  wives  were  on  their  knees  weeping  for  dead 
workingmen ;  but  the  men  said,  with  hat  in  hand, 
"  Is  there  any  ship  going  pretty  soon  to  Brazil  to 
build  a  railroad?  Very  glad  to  be  passengers.  Is 
there  a  little  work  ?  "  Why,  there  are  conscientious- 
ness, and  often  unfathomed  tenderness,  heroism,  and 
nobleness,  among  the  poor ;  and  if  you  will  only 
trust  these  traits,  if  you  will  give  the  churches  among 
them  a  start,  if  you  will  stand  by  the  half-starved 
men  that  are  doing  something  for  them,  you  will 
have  a  blessing  from  above;  but  otherwise,  a  curse. 
[Applause.] 

The  flag  carried  even  in  Boston  lately,  above  the 
heads  of  five  thousand  people,  with  the  motto  on  it, 
"  Hunger  knows  no  law,"  is  likely  to  be  seen  again 
in  America.  Until  you  raise  against  that  ill-omened 
ensign  precisely  the  Biblical  idea  of  going  from 
house  to  house  doing  good,  with  the  purpose  of  mak- 
ing the  masses  Christian,  God  only  knows  whether 
the  black  flag  will  not  ultimately  give  us  permanent 
trouble  in  every  municipality  governed  by  universal 
suffrage.  We  must  listen  to  Chalmers,  and  to  Prince 
Albert  and  George  Peabody,  and  to  Tiberius  Grac- 


230  HEREDITY. 

chus.  But,  above  all  that  company  of  spirits,  there 
is  One  whom  most  of  us  call  Master,  and  who,  as  I 
believe,  is  yet  in  the  world.  He  speaks  to  us  when- 
ever conscience  speaks  with  the  still  small  voice,  and 
he  whispers  to  us  imperatively ;  and  yet  we  treat  his 
words  with  as  little  honor  as  we  do  those  of  experi- 
ence itself.  By  and  by  we  shall  render  in  our  ac- 
count, and  it  will  be  said  to  us,  "  Depart !  for  ye  saw 
me  in  need  of  clothing  and  religious  instruction  at  the 
North  End  in  Boston,  at  the  Five  Points  in  New 
York,  at  the  Seven  Dials  in  London,  in  the  fau- 
bourgs of  Paris,  in  New  Orleans,  in  Chicago,  in  San 
Francisco  ;  and  ye  knew  that  my  poor  were  in  need, 
and  likely  to  be  more  and  more  in  need;  and  ye 
passed  by  on  the  other  side."  There  is  little  con- 
demnation more  severe  in  poignancy  than  that  which 
will  come  to  the  Christian  on  his  dying  bed,  if  he 
has  neglected  the  opportunity  of  imitating  his  Lord 
by  going  about  from  house  to  house,  caring  for  the 
poor.     [Applause.] 

THE   LECTURE. 

An  Arabian  philosopher  said,  "  O  God,  be  kind 
to  the  wicked !  Thou  hast  been  sufficiently  kind  to 
the  good  in  making  them  good."  We  are  surprised 
to  find  that  an  infant  which  has  done  no  evil  may 
inherit  evil.  A  human  being  is  presumably  innocent 
on  coming  into  the  world ;  but  we  often  bring  with 
us  most  terrific  predispositions,  such  as  inflict  upon 
us  unhappiness  throughout  life.  Bad  traits  descend 
by  inheritance,  but  so  do  good  traits  ;  and  if,  there- 


SEVEN   PRINCIPAL   LAWS   OF   HEREDITY.        231 

fore,  this  morning  I  am  to  draw  before  you  a  dark 
picture,  I  must  put  by  the  side  of  it  a  bright  one. 
The  left  hand  and  the  right  hand  in  the  government 
of  the  universe  are  contrasted  as  are  the  antipodes 
of  the  world ;  but  even  antipodes  are  parts  of  one 
circle.  Possibly  we  shall  find  that,  after  all,  the  right 
and  left  hand  of  the  laws  of  hereditary  descent  are 
adapted  to  each  other,  may  easily  be  clasped  the  one 
upon  the  other,  and  that  behind  the  two  hands  is 
only  one  form  and  one  heart,  and  that  Almighty 
God's.  The  descent  of  bad  traits  may  be  a  blessing, 
although  one  of  another  sort  than  the  descent  of 
good  traits.  It  is  evident  that  the  two  laws  operate 
together  under  the  control  of  one  almighty  purpose, 
—  that  of  moulding  humanity  into  —  it  does  not  yet 
appear  what,  but  into  something  like  its  Author. 
[Applause.] 

I  am  accustomed  to  summarize  the  laws  of  heredi- 
tary descent  under  seven  heads,  —  direct  heredity, 
reversional  heredity,  collateral  heredity,  co-equal 
heredity,  pre-marital  heredity,  pre-natal  heredity,  and 
initial  heredity. 

1.  By  direct  heredity  is  meant  the  usual  action  of 
the  laws  of  descent.  The  child  resembles  its  parents ; 
and  yet,  as  Ribot  has  said,  we  must  distinguish  under 
this  head  two  different  sets  of  facts.  In  the  first 
place,  a  child  may  resemble  both  its  parents  equally ; 
in  the  next  place,  it  may  resemble  one  of  them  pecu- 
liarly; but  in  that  second  class  we  must  distinguish 
two  sub-classes,  —  the  likeness  may  be  in  the  same 
sex,  .or  not;  that  is,  the  son  may  resemble  the  father 


232  HEREDITY. 

and  the  daughter  the  mother,  or  the  son  the  mother 
and  the  daughter  the  father. 

2.  Iteversional  heredity  occurs  when  the  child  re- 
sembles its  grandparent.  This  is  called  atavism  in 
the  technical  language  of  the  books  ;  and  we  are  very- 
sure,  from  observation,  that  it  is  one  of  the  most 
influential  laws  of  hereditary  descent!  The  grandson 
often  resembles  his  grandfather,  and  the  granddaugh- 
ter her  grandmother.  There  is  no  possibility  of  ex- 
plaining the  traits  of  individuals  without  using  this 
law  of  reversional  heredity  perhaps  three  times  out 
of  ten.  Judgments  differ  as  to  the  average  of  the 
number  of  cases  to  which  the  law  must  be  applied, 
but  they  are  numerous. 

3.  Collateral  heredity  occurs  when  the  child  resem- 
bles an  uncle  or  aunt,  or  some  one  of  its  relatives 
out  of  the  direct  line  of  descent.  This  often  happens. 
It  is  one  of  the  curious  phenomena  of  inherited 
traits,  that  nobody  knows  how  to  predict  in  advance 
what  will  happen.  As  to  many  of  the  subtler  results 
of  the  laws  of  hereditary  descent,  we  know  only 
that  they  appear.  We  do  not  understand  their 
causes ;  nobody  pretends  to  understand  them.  Nev- 
ertheless, our  ignorance  of  the  causes  does  not 
imply  ignorance  of  the  effects.  We  are  certain  that 
there  is  a  law  of  reversional  heredity,  and  a  law  of 
collateral  heredity,  although  we  do  not  know  in  de- 
tail what  lies  behind  the  laws. 

4.  Co-equal  heredity  is  the  name  of  that  law  by 
which,  in  the  large  average,  the  numbers  of  the  two 
sexes  are  mysteriously  preserved  in  substantial  equal- 
ity. 


SEVEN   PRINCIPAL   LAWS   OF    HEREDITY.       233 

5.  There  is  a  form  of  heredity  which  may  be 
called  the  pre-marital,  and  it  is  seen  when  the  child 
of  a  second  or  third  marriage  resembles  the  husband 
in  a  previous  marriage. 

6.  A  form  of  heredity  which  may  be  galled  pre- 
natal is  observed  where  good  or  bad,  fortunate  or  un- 
fortunate influences,  which  have  powerfully  affeoted 
the  mother  as  such,  are  exhibited  in  good  or  bad  re- 
sults of  the  greatest  importance  in  the  life  of  the 
offspring.  It  is  said  that  the  mother  of  Napoleon 
read  Plutarch's  Lives  and  other  heroic  literature,  and 
that  her  moods  of  mind  were  transferred  to  her  son. 
This  law,  as  to  the  existence  of  which  all  the  ages 
are  agreed,  is  pre-natal  heredity ;  and  the  range  of  it 
is  limited  to  the  real  pre-natal  life  of  the  child. 

7.  Lastly,  we  have  what  probably  is  the  most  im- 
portant form  of  inheritance  except  the  first.  I  call  it 
initial  heredity,  because  this  portion  of  the  laws  of 
hereditary  descent  turns  upon  the  temporary  mood, 
good  or  bad,  fortunate  or  unfortunate,  of  parents 
when  they  become  such.  Ribot,  in  his  elaborate 
work  on  Heredity  (p.  147,  American  edition),  men- 
tions only  four  of  these  laws.  He  omits  the  fourth, 
the  sixth,  and  the  seventh ;  and  his  analysis  is  there- 
fore curiously  incomplete.  I  am  not  aware  that  the 
seventh  has  ever  been  called  by  the  name  here  given 
to  it  The  first,  the  fourth,  and  the  last  of  the  seven 
foims  of  heredity,  are  undoubtedly  the  most  power- 
ful of  the  circumstances  which  determine  the  horo- 
scope of  our  lives. 

Never  shall  I  forget  standing  in  the  hall  of  busts 


234  HEREDITY. 

of  the  emperors  at  Rome,  and  studying  the  face  of 
Agrippina,  mother  of  Nero,  and  the  organization  of 
Nero  himself  at  different  ages,  and  finding  in  the  pre- 
decessors of  Nero  just  the  traits  which  re-appeared 
in  himself.  You  know  what  a  sensual  thickening  of 
the  lower  face,  and  of  the  space  between  the  neck 
and  chin,  existed  in  Agrippina,  Nero's  mother,  in 
spite  of  the  general  symmetry  of  her  face  and  the 
fineness  of  fibre  of  her  Italian  temperament.  She 
had  ability,  perfidy,  ambition,  capacity  for  intrigue, 
and  cruelty  also,  in  the  service  of  her  predominant 
traits.  You  cannot  look  into  her  face  in  marble, 
even,  without  noticing  that  she  was  one  of  the  fools 
who  are  caught  by  the  pleasures  which  Cicero  has 
justly  said  are  by  no  means  the  greatest,  —  the 
sensual  class  of  indulgences.  Her  organization  was 
not  coarse,  and  yet  it  was  low.  From  such  a 
mother,  whom  he  finally  caused  to  be  murdered, 
this  Nero  inherited  just  the  same  neck,  the  same 
perfidious  expression,  the  same  tendency  to  cruelty, 
the  same  forehead.  There  is  in  Nero,  I  think, 
much  more  of  the  mother  than  of  the  father,  for  the 
bust  of  the  latter  looks  like  that  of  a  weakling.  He 
amounted  to  almost  nothing,  except  that  what  little 
force  he  had  was  evil.  Ahenobarbus,  the  father  of 
Nero,  was  stained  with  crimes  of  every  kind.  He 
was  accused  of  murder,  adultery,  and  incest,  and 
escaped  execution  only  by  the  death  of  Tiberius. 
You  remember  that,  when  congratulated  on  the  birth 
of  his  son,  afterward  Nero,  he  replied  that  whatever 
was  sprung  from  him  and  Agrippina  could  only  bring 


SEVEX  PRINCIPAL   LAWS    OF    HEREDITY.       285 

ruin  to  the  state.  We  have  in  Nero,  at  different 
ages,  a  repetition  of  what  must  have  been  the  mood 
of  Agrippina  at  different  ages.  I  remember  a  bust 
of  Nero  at  eighteen  or  twenty  years  of  age,  exhib- 
iting brutal  coarseness,  perfidy,  and  the  puffy  face 
of  physical  indulgence.  A  bust  representing  him 
later  in  life  shows  a  withered  lower  face,  contrasting 
oddly  with  the  dewlap  in  the  chin,  and  the  thick 
neck.  His  last  busts  show  these  same  traits,  together 
with  a  wrinkled  forehead  and  scornful  and  lawless 
lips ;  and  yet  the  fibre  of  the  man's  brain  and  face 
was  not  so  bad  as  the  form  of  both. 

Turn  to  the  other  side  of  the  hall,  however,  in 
Rome,  and  you  will  see  Marcus  Aurelius,  the  most 
virtuous,  perhaps,  of  all  the  emperors.  As  surely  as 
infernal  traits  went  down  upon  Nero,  celestial  ones 
went  down  upon  Marcus  Aurelius.  I  suppose  the 
latter  was  no  more  to  be  praised  for  what  he  inher- 
ited than  Nero  was  to  be  blamed  for  what  came  to 
him  exclusively  through  the  laws  of  hereditary  de- 
scent. I  hold  that  Nero  was  sane.  Some  historians 
have  gone  so  far  as  to  suppose  that  his  bad  traits 
quenched  in  him  moral  responsibility ;  but  he  had 
freedom  of  will,  and  was  responsible  for  the  bad  use 
he  made  of  his  inheritance.  Marcus  Aurelius,  on 
the  other  side,  seems  to  have  been  pushed  from 
before  birth  into  the  position  of  a  philosopher,  and 
a  saint  of  the  pagan  sort.  He  had  by  inheritance 
a  predisposition  to  the  virtues  which  his  reign  ex- 
hibited. 

Now,   was    Providence    unkind    to    Nero?     Was 


236  HEEEDITY. 

Providence  partial  to  Marcus  Aurelius?  To  the 
third  and  fourth  generations  bad  traits  go  down. 
To  the  third  and  fourth  generations  good  traits  go 
down.  These  are  facts.  What  does  Providence 
mean  by  them  ? 

There  are  the  seven  laws  of  hereditary  descent. 
It  turns  out  that  a  good  initial  heredity  may  pro- 
duce virtue  in  the  descendant  by  predisposition 
merely  from  a  temporarily  ennobled  nature,  although 
there  was  in  general  vice  in  the  parents ;  and  so  a 
bad  direct  heredity.  The  apparent  injustice  of  Prov- 
idence is  mitigated  by  this  seventh  law.  If  you  are 
in  a  lofty  mood,  Providence  is  on  your  side ;  but 
when  a  drunkard,  on  the  one  hand,  or  when,  on  the 
other,  a  man  generally  temperate,  but  in  a  temporary 
debauch,  places  himself  under  the  power  of  these  laws 
of  heredity,  that  seventh  principle  acts  just  as  surely 
to  produce  an  inheritance  of  evil  as  it  does  in  the 
opposite  case  to  produce  an  inheritance  of  good. 
Have  you  not  known  some  idiot  born  in  an  able 
family?  I  know  one  who  all  his  life  goes  about  con- 
gratulating his  .friends,  "Good-morning,  sir;"  "-A 
fine  day,  sir."  Nobody,  without  similar  experience, 
can  measure  the  long  reaches  of  the  knives  that 
must  pass  up  and  down  in  the  soul  of  the  father 
of  that  idiot,  for  he  was  one  of  the  ablest  men  of  the 
commonwealth  in  which  he  lived ;  but  he  was  tem- 
porarily a  drunkard,  and  God  cursed  him  through 
that  law  of  initial  heredity.  Have  you  not  known 
children  more  highly  gifted  than  their  parents,  or  in- 
heriting the  excellences  of  one  or  both  in  a  higher 


SEVEN  PRINCIPAL  LAWS   OF   HEREDITY.       237 

degree  than  was  attained  by  the  parents  except  tem- 
porarily ? 

Initial  heredity  is  a  law  which  has  two  edges,  both 
belonging  to  the  same  sword,  which  has  bnt  one  hilt, 
and  is  held  in  but  one  Hand.  Let  us  not  accuse 
God  too  early. 

That  I  may  not  seem  to  be  uttering  blasphemy, 
let  me  transfer  the  unspeakable  topic  of  hereditary 
descent  to  a  lower  plane.  Here  is  the  Commonwealth 
of  Massachusetts.  What  if  she  should  make  a  law 
that  every  man  who  is  habitually  intemperate  shall 
lose  good  judgment?  We  should  say  that  she  is 
terribly  in  earnest.  That  is  a  fearful  thing  to  do. 
Would  you  vote  for  any  such  a  regulation  ?  Prob- 
ably not,  if  you  have  been  educated  liberally.  Take 
away  a  man's  judgment  for  habitual  intemperance  ? 
Why,  the  thing  he  most  needs  under  such  temptation 
is  sound  judgment ;  and  to  crush  in  his  good  sense 
is  to  tempt  him  more,  and  perhaps  to  ruin  him  !  Ask 
me  to  vote  for  a  law  that  every  man  who  is  habitu- 
ally intemperate  shall  lose  good  judgment?  Not  I. 
I  have  been  better  brought  up.  I  was  born  in  Bos- 
ton. There  is  a  commonwealth  of  which  we  have 
heard,  where  the  laws  are  not  passed  by  count  of 
heads  and  clack  of  tongues,  —  a  commonwealth  gov- 
erned by  superior  Powers,  among  which  there  is  no 
vacancy  waiting  to  be  filled  by  any  human  election ; 
and  in  that  commonwealth  such  is  the  law,  and  it  is 
executed  every  time.  [Applause.]  What  do  you 
think  that  commonwealth  means  ?  It  is  terribly  in 
earnest.     It  is  terribly  partisan.     It  has  an  opinion 


238  HEREDITY. 

as  to  the  difference  between  intemperance  and  tem- 
perance. If  across  the  vault  of  the  sky  were  written 
that  opinion  in  letters  of  fire,  it  could  not  be  pro- 
claimed more  emphatically  than  it  is  by  the  law  that 
every  habitually  intemperate  man  loses  good  judg- 
ment. 

But  how,  will  you  vote  for  a  law  in  Massachusetts, 
providing  that  every  man  who  is  habitually  and  per- 
sistently intemperate  shall  have  every  nerve  tracked 
by  pain,  shall  find  the  very  holy  of  holies  of  the 
physical  organism  invaded  by  hot  pincers,  shall  be  put 
upon  the  rack,  and  tortured  as  if  demons  had  him, 
and  shall  go  hence  in  delirium  tremens  ?  Very  few 
men  would  vote  for  such  a  law  as  that.  It  is  a 
terrible  thing  to  .injure  a  man's  health.  His  family 
depends  on  him ;  children  depend  on  him  ;  orphans 
are  to  be  regarded.  We  must  be  liberal.  There  can- 
not possibly  be  passed  any  such  regulation  unless  we 
forget  the  interests  of  wives  and  of  these  little  ones 
who  are  not  responsible  for  coming  into  the  world. 
Surely  liberalism  will  have  no  support  to  give  to  a 
law  by  which  habitual  intemperance  incapacitates  a 
man  for  the  supporting  of  his  family.  There  is,  how- 
ever, a  Power  yonder  which  seems  not  to  be  gov- 
erned by  sentiment  like  this ;  which  has  made  a  law 
that  every  habitually  intemperate  man  shall  have  his 
veins  tortured,  and  shall  have  every  nerve  seized  in 
red-hot  pincers."  That  government  is  terribly  in 
earnest.  That  is  what  it  does.  It  does  that  every 
time.  You  know  that.  There  is  not  a  particle  of 
doubt  on  this  subject.     There  is  not  a  scintilla  of 


SEVEN   PRINCIPAL   LAWS    OF   HEREDITY.       239 

anrest  in  men's  minds  on  this  whole  topic.  What  do 
you  suppose  the  government  means  ? 

But  now,  what  if  it  should  be  enacted  in  Massa- 
chusetts, in  addition  to  both  these  other  laws,  that 
every  habitually  intemperate  man  shall  transmit  a 
diseased  constitution  to  his  offspring,  and  that  this 
injury  to  the  health  of  the  children  shall  endure  to 
the  third  and  fourth  generation?  Who  would  vote 
for  such  a  regulation?  Where  is  the  man  educated 
in  Arnoldism,  where  is  the  man  brought  up  on  the 
platitudes  of  Spencerian  Nescience,  where  is  the 
person  who  thinks  that,  on  the  whole,  whatever  we 
do,  the  nature  of  things  is  on  our  side,  where  is  the 
man  that  believes  that  it  is  safe  to  teach  the  people 
to  rely  on  an  opportunity  for  repentance  after  death, 
that  would  not  exclaim  with  horror  if  a  proposition 
were;  made  to  him  to  pass  such  a  law:  "Is  thy  ser- 
vant a  dog.  that  he  should  do  this  thing?  "  If  Massa- 
chusetts should  adopt  such  a  law,  and  execute  it  every 
time,  you  would  be  sure  of  two  things,  at  least :  that 
she  is  terribly  partisan,  and  that  she  is  terribly  in 
earnest.  The  Supreme  Powers  have  enacted  such  a 
law,  and  executed  it  every  time ;  and  they  have  not 
made  an  apology  for  six  thousand  years.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Evidently,  the  first  thing  to  be  said  about  this  ter- 
rific earnestness  of  the,  Powers  above  is  what  has  al- 
ready been  hinted,  —  that  the  law  of  initial  heredity 
belongs  to  virtue  just  as  much  as  to  vice.  Suppose 
that  when  these  laws  were  passed  in  Massachusetts, 
it  should  also  be  enacted  that  every  man  who  lives  a 


240  HEEEDITY. 

virtuous  life,  every  man  who  fills  his  soul  with  the 
Divine  Spirit,  every  man  who  by  self-surrencler  to  nat- 
ural laws  puts  their  power  on  his  side,  shall  be  blessed 
above  his  anticipation,  shall  have  good  judgment 
given  him  when  he  did  not  possess  it  before,  shall 
have  health  as  a  kind  of  perpetual  intoxication,  shall 
have  the  power  to  transmit  to  another  generation 
better  conditions  than  his  own.  You  sa}r  that  you 
would  vote  for  such  a  law,  but  not  for  its  opposite. 
Of  course  not.  Man's  vote  is  not  asked  for  in  the 
passage  of  natural  laws.  It  is  not  to'  be  supposed, 
that,  because  you  would  vote  for  what  you  call  the 
kind  regulations,  you  would  vote  for  the  stern  ones. 
Not  you !  Every  thing  must  be  callow  and  mucila- 
ginous in  your  government.  The  government  of  the 
universe  is  not  callow  at  all.  There  is  an  Ebal  yonder, 
and  a  Gerizim  also.  With  you,  however,  there  must 
be  an  upper,  but  not  an  under ;  there  must  be  a  right 
hand,  but  not  a  left  hand;  there  must  be  a  before, 
but  not  an  after.  But  yonder  different  ideas  pre- 
vail. The  truth  is  that  your  regulations,  the  moment 
they  were  put  in  force,  would  become  a  curse,  deep, 
multiplex,  immeasurable. 

Who  does  not  see  that  the  terrific  seriousness  of 
the  laws  of  hereditary  descent,  instead  of  being  an 
injustice,  is  a  proclamation  to  every  man  to  institute 
a  reform?  Who  does  not  see  that  the  sternness  of 
what  is  done  on  the  left  hand  pushes  humanity  into 
the  softness  of  the  right  hand?  Who  does  not  see 
that  God  makes  all  his  chastisements  like  the  mother's 
tossing  of  her  infant  upon  her  knees?     This  is  for 


SEVEN"   PRINCIPAL   LAWS   OF   HEREDITY.       241 

the  sake  of  health.  He  makes  them  to  be  like  ob- 
stacles laid  down  in  the  path  of  a  child  learning  to 
walk.     A  little  clambering  is  an  education. 

If,  after  all  their  allurement  of  promise  and  their 
threat  of  doom,  there  is  at  last  no  hope  of  reform, 
what  do  the  laws  of  hereditary  descent  do  ?  They 
put  an  end  to  the  earthly  existence  of  the  trans- 
gressor. "When  I  meditate  on  the  severity  of  the 
laws  of  hereditary  descent,  I  am  relieved  by  remem- 
bering that  the  earthly  career  of  vice  is  short.  Be- 
fore the  eyes  of  exact  observation  in  this  world,  the 
thoroughly  vicious  family  is  at  last  burned  up.  So 
much  we  know  beyond  a  peradventure  as  to  the  tires 
of  the  universe.  One  of  the  greatest  curses  pro- 
nounced alike  by  the  Scriptures  and  natural  law  upon 
evil  is  that  it  shall  have  no  name  long  in  the  earth. 

You  say  that  often  evil  dispositions  are  inherited 
through  many  generations.  Sometimes  people  who 
are  half  vicious  and  half  virtuous,  if  such  expressions 
may  be  allowed,  puzzle  the  world  in  families  that  live 
century  after  century.  Yes ;  in  spite  of  the  severity 
of  the  laws  of  hereditary  descent,  God  gives  every 
half-breed  a  chance.  He  suffers  long  with  a  man 
who  has  received  burdens  out  of  the  ancestral  spaces, 
and  comes  weighted  into  life.  He  gives  him  an  op- 
portunity, and  puts  by  his  side  these  laws  of  hered- 
ity, reversional,  collateral,  pre-marital,  pre-natal,  and 
initial.  Direct  heredity  docs  not  choke  him.  Five 
other  laws  of  heredity  stand  by  him,  if  natural  law  is 
obeyed.  Every  human  being  has  all  the  chances 
represented  by  the  seven  laws  of  hereditary  descent. 


242  HEREDITY. 

But  when  the  Supreme  Power  sees  that  no  chance 
is  improved,  then  it  allows  the  laws  of  heredity  to 
shut  down  upon  the  transgressors,  and  they  are  re- 
moved from  the  earth. 

What  good  does  that  riddance  or  removal  do  ?  It 
has  been  justly  said  that  the  ages  are  kept  from  being 
insane  by  the  cradles  and  by  death.  If  we  could  not 
get  rid  of  disordered  human  organizations,  what 
would  happen  to  the  centuries?  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes  remarks  that  most  people  think  that  any 
difficulty  of  a  physical  sort  can  be  cured  if  a  phy- 
sician is  called  early  enough.  "Yes,"  he  replies, 
"  but  early  enough  would  commonly  be  two  hundred 
years  in  advance."  Concerning  the  terrific  earnest- 
ness of  Nature,  it  is  certain  that  she  means  well,  even 
in  her  severities,  and  that  we  must  treat  her  as  we 
would  a  kind  commonwealth. 

There  is  one  service  that  the  Supreme  Powers  are 
willing  to  do  for  us,  and  which  I  have  not  supposed 
human  power  to  endeavor  to  effect  in  a  parallel  case. 
The  Supreme  Powers  have  a  law,  of  the  existence  of 
which  we  have  seen  the  proof  here,  that,  whenever  a 
man  submits  himself  utterly  to  that  divine  force  in 
him  which  we  call  conscience,  a  new  set  of  affections 
shall  be  given  him  by  a  re-arrangement  of  his  nature. 
A  light  will  stream  in  through  dome  windows  which 
before  were  curtained.  There  will  come  into  the 
depths  of  his  life  a  quickening  and  transforming 
power,  utterly  unobtainable  except  by  total  self-sur- 
render to  conscience.  The  worst  case  of  sane  hered- 
ity is  no  exception  to  this  law.     Take  a  man  who  is 


SEVEN   PRINCIPAL   LAWS   OP   HEREDITY.       243 

born  like  Nero,  and  let  him  surrender  to  conscience, 
and  then  those  terrific  steeds,  which  have  dashed  off 
the  track  with  him,  become  coursers  of  fire  on  the 
line  where  God  would  have  him  drive.  It  is  not  a 
bad  thing  for  a  man  to  have  a  tempest  in  the  lower 
half  of  his  face,  if  only  he  has  a  hurricane  in  the 
upper  half.     [Applause.] 


X. 

THE  DESCENT  OF  BAD  TRAITS  AND  GOOD. 


THE   ONE   HUNDREDTH  LECTURE    IN   THE   BOSTON 

MONDAY  LECTURESHIP,   DELIVERED   IN 

TBEMONT   TEMPLE,   FEB.   11. 


De  male  qusesitis  gaudat  non  tertius   hseres.  —  Bellochii  Praxit 

Moralis. 

As  Heaven  and  Earth  are  fairer,  fairer  far 

Than  Chaos  and  blank  Darkness,  though  once  chiefs; 

And  as  we  show  beyond  that  Heaven  and  Earth 

In  form  and  shape  compact  and  beautiful, 

In  will,  in  action  free,  companionship, 

And  thousand  other  signs  of  purer  life; 

So  on  our  heels  a  fresh  perfection  treads, 

A  power  more  strong  in  beauty,  born  of  us, 

And  fated  to  excel  us,  as  we  pass 

In  glory  that  old  Darkness. 

Keats:  Hyperion. 


X. 


THE  DESCENT  OF  BAD  TRAITS  AND 

GOOD. 

PRELUDE   ON   CURRENT   EVENTS. 

It  is  becoming  necessar}^  for  the  whole  world  to 
understand  Russia.  The  Bosphorus  now  flows  into 
the  Thames.  A  few  prophets,  among  whom  I  do  not 
rank  myself,  are  audacious  enough  to  predict  that 
by  and  by  the  Thames  will  flow  into  the  Bosphorus. 
Napoleon's  famous  saying,  that  the  power  which 
governs  Constantinople  may  easily  become  mistress 
of  Europe  and  Asia,  has  behind  it,  no  doubt,  a  pier- 
cing military  sagacity  in  the  study  of  strategic  geo- 
graphical lines.  The  Thames  is  the  water-front  of 
the  globe  to-day ;  but,  if  a  power  able  to  occupy  the 
natural  capacities  of  Constantinople  were  to  possess 
the  Bosphorus,  who  knows  but  that,  little  by  little, 
that  stream  might  become  the  water-front  of  Asia 
and  Europe?  It  has  geographical  advantages  of  the 
most  marvellous  sort.  For  one,  I  believe  that  the 
attraction  of  America  will  so  influence  European 
commerce,  that  the  Tiber  of  the  world,  the  central 
stream  of  the  planet,  will  be  the  Atlantic,  and   not 

247 


248  HEREDITY. 

the  Bosphorus.  But  I  am  willing  to  admit  that  the 
commercial  front  of  Asia  and  of  Europe  may  ulti- 
mately take  up  its  position,  not  on  the  coasts  of 
China  or  India,  not  on  the  shores  of  France  or  Eng- 
land, but  on  the  waters  of  Constantinople. 

The  lesser  is  becoming  a  greater  question  of  the 
East.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  details  in  the 
Eastern  problem,  no  one  can  deny  that  it  is  likely 
to  assume  Asiatic  proportions.  Finally  the  bounda- 
ries of  the  English  and  the  Russian  possessions  in 
Asia  will  touch  each  other.  The  petty  states  be- 
tween British  India  and  the  great  Russian  Empire 
will  melt  away.  There  is  now  between  the  two 
nothing  that  deserves  to  be  called  an  independent 
territory.  Already  Russia  is  occupying  a  Chinese 
province  on  pretext  that  the  Celestial  Empire  can 
not  keep  order,  and  prevent  her  citizens  from  outra- 
ging Russians.  She  has  occupied  Saghalien  close  to 
Japan,  and  once  belonging  to  the  Japanese  Empire. 
She  appears  to  be  outwitting  England  at  this  moment 
[applause]  in  one  of  the  boldest  games  ever  pla}'ed 
in  history  for  the  possession  of  a  position  which  she 
covets  more  than  any  other  on  the  planet.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Americans  are  by  no  means  outside  the  range  of 
complications  that  may  arise  in  Asia.  Who  is  there 
here  that  is  not  proud  of  our  American  colleges  at 
Beirut  and  on  the  Bosphorus  ?  Who  does  not  know 
that  if  the  tide  of  influence  be  turned  from  Europe 
toward  Asia,  instead  of  from  Asia  toward  Europe, 
inside  the  domain  of  what  has  been  called  Turkey, 


THE   DESCENT   OF   BAD   TRAITS   AND   GOOD.    249 

the  hour  has  come  for  the  American  scholars  at 
Beirut,  and  in  Robert  College  on  the  Bosphorus,  to 
arise  and  shine  ?  I  know  how  Russia  drove  all  mis- 
sionaries from  her  borders  in  1846.  If  the  slightest 
peril  of  extinction  by  Russia  is  to  encompass  Robert 
College  at  Constantinople,  and  the  great  American 
institutions  at  Beirut,  there  is  no  American  scholar, 
to  say  nothing  of  American  divines,  there  is  no 
American  patriot,  that  will  not  feel  himself  wounded 
in  a  cause  greater  than  any  American,  English,  or 
Russian  interest.  The  time  seems  to  have  come  for 
serious  thought  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  to  ex- 
press itself  vigorously  against  any  repetition  of  the 
precedent  of  1846,  by  which  Russia  drove  all  teach- 
ers of  a  faith  other  than  her  own  outside  of  her  bor- 
ders. [Applause.]  1878  is  not  1846  ;  and  that  fact 
must  be  recognized  in  the  Russian  calendar,  as  it  is 
in  the  English  and  American.     [Applause.] 

One  thousand  years  ago,  when,  according  to  the 
testimony  of  Brj-ant,  the  Norse  shallops  were  sailing 
up  Massachusetts  Bay,  the  Russians  occupied  only 
an  insignificant  province  near  the  head-waters  of  the 
Dnieper.  To-day  they  govern  one-seventh  part  of 
The  continental  portion  of  the  globe.  What  are  the 
causes  which  have  produced  the  expansion  of  Russia? 
A  very  difficult  question  ;  and  yet  recent  information 
given  us  by  Wallace,  and  by  our  own  statesman  mis- 
sionary Hamlin,  and  by  many  official  documents, 
may  enable  us  to  guess  why  Russia  has  expanded  so 
rapidly.  One  of  the  causes  accounting  for  her  growth 
is  agricultural  necessity.     Her  peasants  are  not  farm- 


250  HEREDITY. 

ers  of  the  scientific  order.  The  soil  becomes  rapidly 
exhausted  under  their  methods  of  tillage.  High- 
farming  is  almost  unknown  on  the  prairie-lands  of 
Russia.  Consequently,  as  the  population  has  grown, 
new  stretches  of  territory  have  been  called  for ;  and, 
as  no  great  mountain-chains  were  in  the  way,  expan- 
sion towards  the  sunrise  was  easy.  Self-defence, 
too,  has  enlarged  Russia.  Attacked  by  marauding 
hordes  along  her  southern  border,  she  has  often  felt 
herself  obliged  to  protect  herself  against  Tartar 
provinces  by  their  annexation.  High  political  aims, 
however,  have  urged  the  expansion  of  Russia  toward 
the  west  and  the  south.  Her  chief  physical  defi- 
ciencj'"  is  a  lack  of  seaports.  It  is  commonplace  to 
notice  the  fact  that  Russia  wants  the  right  of  wav 
by  water  into  the  Mediterranean ;  but  it  is  not  quite 
commonplace,  at  least  in  England,  to  grant  that  she 
has  justice  on  her  side  in  this  great  political  and 
commercial  desire.  As  no  one  here  is  responsible 
for  my  opinions,  perhaps  you  will  allow  me  to  say 
that  a  people  who  have  lately  manumitted  their  serfs, 
and  who  govern  a  stretch  of  territory  extending  from 
the  Baltic  to  our  Behrings  Straits,  a  population  of 
eighty-five  millions,  ought  to  be  allowed  their  mari- 
time rights  as  well  as  their  rights  on  the  land.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Who  supposes  that  giving  the  Russians  the  power 
to  pass  through  the  Dardanelles  will  give  them  entire 
control  of  Constantinople  ?  That  city  for  a  consid- 
erable period  will  need  to  be  under  very  peculiar 
government,  if  Russia  can  send  her  iron-clads  unde~ 


THE   DESCENT    OF   BAD   TRAITS   AND   GOOD.    251 

its  roofs  at  will,  and  the  rest  of  Europe  is  not  to  be 
thrown  into  tremor.  But  it  is  a  matter  Of  natural 
right,  I  suppose,  that  Russia,  if  under  trustworthy 
bonds  to  keep  the  peace,  —  a  great  if!  —  should  be 
admitted  to  the  Levantine  Sea.  On  that  condition 
she  should  have  what  she  has  been  seeking  for  hun- 
dreds of  years,  —  the  right  of  way  into  the  open 
oceans  of  the  globe.  England  seems  unlikely  to  ob- 
ject to  such  a  right  of  way  on  the  part  of  Russia, 
provided  her  own  right  of  way  is  not  impeded.  Will 
England  have  free  course  to  India  if  Russia  has  free 
course  through  the  Levantine  Sea  ?  How  many  de- 
bates may  arise  concerning  the  Suez  Canal?  How 
far  may  Russia  misuse  her  power,  if  able  at  last  to 
attack  England  from  both  the  sea  and  the  land? 

Undoubtedly,  were  she  to  attack  India  only  from 
the  north,  she  would  have  many  disadvantages. 
There  is  a  great  probability  that  if  the  Russian  bear 
and  the  English  lion  should  lock  jaws  in  the  fast- 
nesses of  the  Cashmere  vale,  the  bear  would  go 
back  to  his  icebergs,  lame  at  least,  if  not  cold ! 
[Applause.]  Were  there  an  English-speaking  alliance 
on  the  globe,  and  were  the  American  eagle  to  watch 
any  such  conflict  from  a  crag,  looking  down  on  these 
two  rivals,  I  think  the  beasts  would  never  meet. 
[Applause.]  We  need  such  moral  influences  brought 
to  the  support  of  the  British  Empire  in  the  Christian 
pin  poses  of  the  better  portion  of  the  English  people, 
as  shall  keep  down  war  in  the  interior  of  Asia,  and 
so  take  the  bloody  heart  out  of  this  greater  Eastern 
problem. 


252  HEREDITY. 

Everybody,  I  think,  will  allow  me  to  affirm  that 
we  have  seen  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  the  Turk- 
ish power  in  Europe.  Mohammedanism  will  decline 
so  far  as  it  has  been  a  force  on  the  sunset  side  of 
the  Bosphorus.  But  now,  unless  great  good  judg- 
ment is  employed,  there  can  hardly  be  an  avoidance 
of  a  collision,  or  certainly  not  of  misunderstanding, 
between  Great  Britain  and  Russia  in  the  heart  of 
Asia.  When  that  collision  comes,  or  is  threatened, 
can  America  do  any  thing  toward  bettering  the  con- 
ditions of  the  solution  of  the  greater  Eastern  ques- 
tion? If  you  will  stand  by  your  American  mission- 
aries, you  may  do  much  toward  casting  light  among 
the  Mohammedan  people  who  now  lie  as  a  wedge 
between  Russia  and  India.  If  }"ou  will  not  shut  your 
doors  on  the  Pacific  coast,  you  may  do  much  toward 
sending  out  Christianity  through  returning  China- 
men into  the  greatest  empire  of  Asia.  [Applause.] 
When  the  Chinese  question  comes  before  Congress, 
the  repeal  of  the  Burlingame  treaty,  I  hope,  is  not 
likely  to  be  effected.  America  has  some  part  to 
take  in  regard  to  the  greater  question  of  the  East. 
Her  work  is  to  be  performed  in  the  Christian  man- 
ner, by  the  spreading  abroad  of  schools  among  the 
Asiatic  populations,  by  shooting  the  slant  javelins  of 
the  gospel's  radiance  into  Chinese  Tartary,  into  Thi- 
bet, into  Persia,  into  Arabia,  into  Asia  Minor,  into 
Syria,  and  by  not  putting  a  tax  on  every  Chinaman 
who  comes  here  !  [Applause.]  Let  us  have  impar- 
tial police  regulations  both  for  the  Chinese  and  the 
whizzing  hoodlums  of  San  Francisco.     Let  us  apply 


THE   DESCENT   OF   BAD   TRAITS   AND.  GOOD.    253 

beneficent  law  in  California  to  both  white  men  and 
yellow  men.  [Applause.]  The  Chinaman  divides 
all  Americans  into  two  classes,  —  the  men  who  fleece 
him  and  those  who  would  educate  him.  Let  us  put 
ourselves  on  the  side  of  those  who  would  educate 
the  reflux  Chinese  immigration  ;  a  rill  now,  but  likely 
to  deepen  and  broaden,  and  to  become  a  most  valu- 
able means  of  evangelizing  the  Chinese  Empire.  It 
is  more  than  important  that  America  should  not 
obtain  a  bad  name  in  Asia.  Let  us  remember  that 
when  the  American  scholar  Van  Dyke,  at  Beirut, 
sits  down,  and  gives  the  Scriptures  voice  in  an  Ara- 
bic translation  so  perfect  that  native  scholars  of  Da- 
mascus and  Mecca  say  it  resembles  the  Koran  itself 
in  purity  of  diction,  —  he  is  probably  addressing 
more  people  than  speak  the  English  language.  The 
Arabic,  in  its  common  and  in  its  printed  forms, 
taken  together,  is  the  language  of  a  hundred  mil- 
lions of  people.  I  saw,  when  at  Beirut,  an  extended 
list  of  books  which  have  been  translated  by  our 
scholars  there  into  Arabic.  Some  of  them  were 
mathematical  works,  some  of  them  medical,  some  of 
them  astronomical,  a  great  majority  of  them  religious ; 
and  I  remember  that  as  I  held  this  list  up  under  the 
shadow  of  Lebanon,  and  waved  it  to  and  fro  in  the 
hot  wind  that  moved  out  of  Egypt,  I  said  to  Dr. 
Van  Dyke,  "  There  is  the  best  flag  that  America  has 
raised  abroad."  Let  us  not  dishonor  that  ensign. 
Let  us  permit  no  Russian  or  Asiatic  power  to  dis- 
honor it.  Lord  Shaftesbury  and  Sir  Stratford  de 
Redcliffe  affirm  that  the  American  missionaries  are 


254  HEREDITY. 

the  most  remarkable  men  in  the  East,  and  the  most 
essential,  not  only  to  its  religions,  but  also  to  its 
social  and  political  salvation.  [Applause.]  When 
I  sailed  through  the  iEgean,  I  was  with  Homer,  and 
I  looked  back  toward  the  promontory  at  Beirut, 
crowned  with  American  schools  of  the  first  rank ;  I 
looked  toward  the  towers  of  Robert  College,  on 
which  our  Hamlin  had  raised,  and  was  lifting  and 
lowering  as  our  steamer  passed  by,  the  American 
flag ;  and  I  felt  that  so  far  as  the  solution  of  the 
question  of  the  East,  in  its  Asiatic  proportions,  is 
concerned,  America,  little  as  the  fact  is  emphasized 
as  yet,  has  a  part  to  act  grander  than  was  ever 
played  by  the  heroes  of  the  Iliad.  Her  heroes  are 
at  Beirut  and  on  the  Bosphorus  in  the  colleges,  and 
yonder  at  San  Francisco  in  the  Chinese  schools. 
[Applause.] 

THE   LECTURE. 

In  the  days  of  chivalry  a  marriage  was  usually 
contracted  with  a  sacred  regard  of  the  demands  of 
natural  law,  and  not  merely  of  those  of  social  or 
personal  caprice.  There  were  often  required  from 
both  parties  careful  certificates,  not  only  of  noble 
descent,  but  of  courage,  loyalty,  piety,  and  all  the 
chivalric  virtues  it  was  desired  to  transmit.  Infi- 
delity sometimes  thinks  that  it  has  exclusive  posses- 
sion of  the  topic  of  the  hereditary  descent  of  good 
traits  and  bad.  If  you  put  your  ear  upon  the  ground, 
and  listen,  as  it  is  my  duty  to  do,  as  a  student  of 
the  signs  of  the  times  and  an   outlook   committee 


THE   DESCENT   OF   BAD   TRAITS   AND   GOOD.    255 

here,  to  the  subterranean  noises  of  discussion,  you 
will  find  not  a  few  of  them  coming  from  pickaxes, 
undermining  faith  in  the  natural  laws  which  proclaim 
that  the  family  is  a  divine  institution.  Approaching 
the  delirious  traitors  who  handle  these  ill-omened 
weapons,  you  will  find  that  there  hums  above  their 
foreheads  a  miner's  light,  composed  chiefly  of  blue 
fire.  And  yet  there  is  sometimes  one  streak  of  white 
flame  in  it.  These  sappers  of  the  foundations  of 
society  profess  a  desire  to  have  mankind  improved 
by  obedience  to  natural  law.  Although  their  method 
of  improving  the  race  would  usually  land  it  in  moral 
chaos,  one  of  their  central  purposes  is  not  a  bad  one, 
—  namely,  to  secure  enlarged  obedience  to  natural 
law,  as  the  method  of  raising  the  average  intellectual 
and  moral  merit  of  the  human  family.  Christianity 
has  had  that  motive  for  ages.  She  has  understood, 
ever  since  the  Decalogue  was  proclaimed,  that  the 
good  and  bad  traits  of  parents  descend  to  the  third 
and  fourth  generations.  She  was  the  first  to  rever- 
ence woman  adequately.  Even  in  what  you  call  the 
half-benighted  Jewish  system  of  life,  woman  received 
honor  such  as  was  shown  to  her  nowhere  else  on 
the  planet.  The  Marys,  the  Ruths,  the  Sarahs, — 
they  whose  appellations,  coming  down  across  all  the 
turmoil  of  the  years,  are  honored  yet  as  among  the 
foremost  female  names  of  all  time,  —  were  growths 
of  what  you  call  the  scrawny,  stunted  tree  of  Juda- 
ism, the  root  out  of  which  has  sprung  Christianity. 
Sweet  was  the  root;  majestic  is  the  tree.  My  feeling 
is,  that,  were  you  to  cut  down  the  tree,  and  were 


256  HEREDITY. 

you  to  deracinate  that  root,  there  is  little  philosophy 
on  the  globe  that  could  be  depended  upon  to  per- 
petuate the  family.     [Applause.] 

Suppose  that  we  have  here  a  marking-machine 
or  a  vertical  plank  [illustrating  on  the  blackboard], 
against  which  a  million  men,  one  after  the  other, 
stand,  while  the  height  of  each  is  dotted  upon  it. 
Let  the  measurement  be  repeated  with  other  millions 
of  the  same  race,  living  under  the  same  conditions 
with  the  first  million.  It  will  be  found  that  there  is 
a  substantially  unchanged  average  height  for  any 
million,  year  after  year.  The  dots  representing  the 
height  of  the  different  individuals  will  range  over 
quite  a  space.  There  will  be  a  few  very  short  men, 
and  a  few  very  tall  ones.  Let  a  line  representing 
the  average  height  of  a  million  be  drawn  through  the 
cloud  of  dots.  On  both  sides  of  that  average  line 
the  dots  will  diminish  in  number  as  they  recede  from 
the  average.  Notice  where  the  dot  representing  the 
least  height  stands,  and  where  the  dot  representing 
the  greatest  height  stands.  Divide  the  distance  from 
the  lowest  to  the  highest  point  into  equal  spaces. 
We  find  but  a  very  few  dots  in  the  upper  space,  and 
a  very  few  in  the  lower  ;  but  if  you  will  tell  me  where- 
this  average  lies,  and  how  many  points  there  are  in 
that  upper  square,  I  can  calculate,  according  to 
mathematical  law,  what  the  number  of  points  would 
be  in  the  other  squares.  Experience  and  theory 
correspond  with  marvellous  closeness  inside  the 
range  of  such  spaces.  This  is  the  famous  law  of 
deviation  from  an  average,  of  which  such  extensive 


THE   DESCENT   OF   BAD   TRAITS   AND    GOOD.    257 

use  has  been  made  by  Quetelet,  the  astronomer-royal 
of  Belgium,  the  highest  authority  on  vital  and  social 
statistics.  (See  Quetelet,  Letters  on  Probabilities, 
translated  by  Downes,  London,  1849.) 

The  vagrant  dots  in  these  equal  spaces  above  and 
below  the  line  of  average  follow  a  law  so  perfectly, 
that,  frcm  knowing  one  part  of  the  apparently  un- 
symmetrical  arrangement,  you  can  draw  the  map  of 
the  rest.  If  these  dots  were  bullet-marks,  they  would 
follow  the  same  law  of  deviation  from  an  average. 
Stand  yonder  with  your  regiment,  and  fire  your  bal- 
lets against  the  plank.  Aim  them  all  against  this 
central  line.  Some  /will  strike  below  it,  some  above 
it,  and  some  will  strike  the  line  itself;  but  when  you 
have  determined  your  average,  and  the  number  of 
bullet-marks  in  any  square,  the  law  of  deviation  from 
an  average  will  enable  you  to  estimate  with  great 
precision  the  number  of  bullet-marks  in  any  other 
of  the  squares. 

Now,  what  has  this  to  do  with  hereditary  descent  ? 
A  million  men  of  the  same  race,  brought  up  here  to 
this  measuring-machine,  are  proved  to  have  heights 
governed  by  a  fixed  law  of  deviations  from  an  aver- 
age. It  is  to  be  presumed,  therefore,  that  their 
weight,  their  muscular  strength,  the  size  of  their 
chests  and  brains,  and  every  one  of  their  physical 
traits,  are  governed  by  a  law  of  averages.  But,  if  a 
great  variety  of  physical  traits  may  be  shown  to 
depend  on  the  law  of  average  in  this  way,  the  mental 
traits  may  be  also.  If  you  can  prove  that  this  law 
uf   averages   governs    the    majority  of  the   physical 


258  HEREDITY. 

traits  of  the  race,  it  also  touches  their  mental  traits. 
Scientific  observers  are  agreed  in  assuming  that  there 
is  a  law  of  averages  applying  to  mental  and  moral  as 
well  as  to  the  physical  capacities  in  the  individuals 
of  the  race.  At  the  top  of  the  mental  scale  we  have 
genius ;  at  the  bottom  stupidity.  Determine  the 
position  of  the  average  line  between  these  two  ex- 
tremes, divide  the  space  between  top  and  bottom 
equally,  and  then  ascertain  the  number  of  cases  rep- 
resented by  any  one  space,  high  or  low,  and  you  may 
determine  by  the  law  of  averages  the  number  in 
every  other  space.  (See  Galton's  use  of  Quete- 
let's  law,  Hereditary  Genius,  American  edition,  pp. 
26-32.) 

How  can  the  average  ability  of  the  race  be  raised 
by  the  application  of  the  laws  of  hereditary  descent  ? 

In  putting  this  question  before  you,  I  am  perfectly 
aware  that  I  am  venturing  into  chaos,  or,  at  least, 
into  regions  where  it  is  difficult  to  find  firm  ground 
on  which  to  put  down  the  foot.  I  am  not  speaking 
here  at  random,  but  cautiously  selecting  the  few 
sound  conclusions  which  science  has  reached,  and 
combining  them  in  such  a  manner  that  we  may  see, 
if  our  eyes  are  open,  the  trend  of  investigation  on 
this  most  blazing  of  all  social  themes.  It  is  the  duty 
of  this  lectureship  not  to  skip  difficulties.  [Ap- 
plause.] Milton,  you  know,  sends  out  Satan  across 
chaos,  and  he  is  to  build  a  road  under  himself  as 
he  proceeds  to  the  Garden  of  Eden.  I  am  on  an 
expedition  of  similar  difficulty,  but  of  diametrically 
opposite  purpose  and  direction.     [Applause.]    In  the 


THE   DESCENT   OF  BAD   TRAITS   AND   GOOD.    259 

name  of  the  laws  of  hereditary  descent,  let  us  have 
courage  to  build  a  road  the  other  way,  from  Eden 
out  across  chaos  over  the  outer  works  of  infamy  and 
degradation,  and  through  the  gates  of  death,  into  the 
caverns  of  the  lost  spirits.  Let  us,  standing  upon 
the  mighty  parapet  of  loyalty  to  natural  truth,  that 
is,  to  God's  will  as  revealed  in  the  family,  build  a 
bridge  out  from  it  into  the  world  of  souls  in  chains 
and  darkness,  and  meet  Satan  half-way,  throttling 
him  backward  beyond  the  forms  of  Sin  and  Death. 
[Applause.] 

These  are  the  twelve  propositions  on  which  I  dare 
put  foot,  after  a  prolonged  study  of  this  theme :  — 

1.  The  best  results  for  the  improvement  of  the 
race  will  be  attained  by  obedience  not  to  a  few,  nor 
to  most,  but  to  all  of  the  seven  laws  of  heredity,  — 
direct,  reversional,  collateral,  co-equal,  pre-marital, 
pre-natal,  and  initial.  (For  definitions  of  these  terms 
see  the  ninety-ninth  Boston  Monday  Lecture.) 

Here  are  the  seven  laws  of  hereditary  descent,  and 
you  and  I  cannot  vote  them  up  or  down.  We  may 
obey  them,  or  disobey  them ;  but,  if  the  race  is  to  be 
improved  to  the  utmost  by  the  application  of  these 
laws,  the  first  thing  to  feel  sure  about  is  that  we  must 
obey,  not  one  or  several,  but  all  of  them.  The  trou- 
ble with  most  reforms  of  the  wild  sort  is  that  they  are 
merely  fragmentary  attempts  at  loyalty  to  nature. 
They  put  into  the  foreground  some  one  of  these 
seven  principles,  and  not  all  of  them.  Nature  re- 
venges  herself  always  for  any  partial  loyalty  with 
which  we  serve  her.     [Applause.] 


260  HEREDITY. 

2.  The  law  of  co-equal  heredity  is  the  loud  proc- 
lamation of  monogamy  as  of  natural  —  that  is,  of 
divine  —  ordainment. 

3.  The  law  of  initial  heredity  has  a  similar  mean- 
ing. 

We  are  on  holy  ground.  We  may  well  pause  here 
to  allow  our  thoughts  time  to  suggest  much  which 
ought  not  to  be  uttered  audibly.  There  is  a  myste- 
rious law  by  which  the  numbers  of  the  two  portions 
of  the  human  family  are  preserved  in  substantial 
equality.  Emigration  may  change  the  proportion  of 
the  sexes.  It  is  by  no  means  denied  by  me,  that  in 
some  districts  of  the  world  the  numbers  of  one  sex 
predominate  over  those  of  the  other.  But,  on  the 
large  average,  in  the  natural  arrangement  of  things, 
there  is  an  astonishing  equality  preserved  between 
these  numbers  by  a  fixed  natural  law.  That  signifi- 
cant arrangement  I  call  co-equal  heredity.  Now,  if 
you  admit  that  marriage  is  a  natural  state,  it  is  nat- 
ural for  every  man ;  and  it  follows  therefore,  mathe- 
matically, and  on  this  topic  there  is  no  louder  procla- 
mation in  the  universe,  that  the  law  of  co-equal 
heredity  is  the  Divine  ordainment  of  monogamy. 
[Applause.]  Your  thoughts  are  following  this  line 
of  remark  farther  than  my  words  have  carried  you  ; 
and  I  am  willing  that  they  should  follow  it  on  and 
on,  until,  in  the  councils  which  preceded  the  forma- 
tion of  the  world,  you  find  the  Divine  fiat  regulating 
Parad:se.  By  natural  law,  Eden  consists  of  Adam 
and  Eve,  and  not  of  Adam  and  two  Eves  or  twenty. 
[Applause.]     There  has  been  no  departure  from  this 


THE   DESCENT   OF   BAD   TRAITS    AND   GOOD.    261 

law  of  nature  since  the  career  of  man  opened. 
The  fiat  as  to  co-equal  heredity,  exhibited  in  the 
earliest  historic  documents,  has  certainly  not  been 
changed  for  sixty  centuries.  God  has  been  express- 
ing his  mind  as  to  social  arrangements  these  six 
thousand  years.  From  the  beginning  he  has  uttered 
but  one  voice.  He  has  always  maintained  the  law  of 
co-equal  heredity,  and  by  it  has  maintained  the  law 
of  monogamy  as  the  natural  ideal.  [Applause.]  I 
defy  any  man  who  reveres  the  scientific  method,  or 
who  loves  to  think  boldly,  north,  south,  east,  and 
west,  to  look  into  the  arrangements  of  nature  on  this 
topic,  and  find  support  for  any  other  party  than 
God's  own,  as  a  guide  for  future  civilization.  I 
should  be  almost  willing,  were  men  sure  to  obey 
wholly  the  dictates  of  what  we  call  nature,  to  leave 
the  justification  of  monogamy  exclusively  to  those 
who  correctly  understand  co-equal  and  initial  hered- 
ity. 

Did  Shakspeare  know  of  what  he  was  talking 
when  he  spoke  of  the  green-eyed  monster  called 
jealousy?  Have  the  poets  in  all  ages  been  blind 
when  they  have  asserted  that  there  are  passions 
through  which  the  words  "  mine  "  and  "  thine  "  obtain 
terrific  emphasis  inside  the  range  of  social  and 
family  life?  If  the  law  of  co-equal  heredity  pro- 
claims monogamy,  so  does  that  of  initial  heredity.  If 
there  is  to  be  a  supreme  affection,  there  is,  of  course, 
to  be  a  guarding  of  it;  and  if  the  poets,  if  the  phil- 
osophers, if  all  who  have  studied  the  human  heart, 
are  not  wrong  in  assigning  to  jealousy  a  force  suffi- 


262  HEREDITY. 

eient  to  burst  social  mountains,  making  them  crack 
open  like  so  much,  baked  volcanic  clay,  in  revulsion 
after  revulsion ;  if  jealousy  has  always  been  one  of 
the  high  explosives  in  human  history,  you  may  put 
this  force,  too,  on  the  side  of  monogamy,  for  there 
is  where  God  intended  that  its  power  should  be  ex- 
pended.    [Applause.] 

4.  The  average  ability  of  the  race  is  not  equal  to 
its  present  tasks. 

Galton  says  that  men  in  modern  times  are  in  danger 
of  being  drudged  into  imbecility.  There  is  hardly 
any  class  of  the  advanced  intellectual  laborers  of  the 
world,  that  does  not  need  a  higher  grade  of  ability 
to  meet  its  tasks.  You,  sir  [turning  to  the  Rev.  Dr. 
R.  S.  Storrs],  were  telling  us  last  evening,  how  to 
solve  the  great  problem  of  the  government  of  cities. 
You  were  showing  us  how  cities  reach  all  the  globe ; 
and,  as  some  of  us  listened,  we  were  wishing  that  we 
oftener  had  leadership  like  yours  into  these  wilder- 
nesses of  iniquity,  greed,  and  pelf,  where  men  are 
trampled  down  every  day  merely  because  they  are 
not  strong  enough  for  their  tasks.  We  want  higher 
ability  in  every  grade  of  intellectual  activity;  nor 
is  the  physical  capacity  of  the  race  equal  to  the 
demands  made  upon  it  by  modern  civilization. 

5.  Whatever  light  science  can  throw  upon  the 
methods  of  improving  the  average  ability  of  the 
race,  consistently  with  the  natural  institution  of  mo- 
nogamy, is,  therefore,  needed,  and  should  be  diffused. 

We  are  not  so  far  advanced,  I  hope,  as  to  despise 
the  social  wisdom  of  the  age  of  chivalry. 


THE  DESCENT   OF   BAD  TRAITS   AND   GOOD.    263 

6.  The  intermarriage  of  highly  gifted  relatives 
tends  to  diminish  rather  than  to  increase  the  ability 
of  the  race. 

Niebuhr  says  that  aristocracies,  when  obliged  to 
recruit  their  numbers  among  themselves,  fall  into 
decay,  and  often  into  insanity,  dementia,  and  imbe- 
cility. Who  does  not  know  that  this  truth  might  be 
illustrated  by  vast  ranges  of  historical  knowledge, 
were  there  time  here  for  the  presentation  of  details  ? 
The  Lagidoe  and  Seleucidee  for  ten  hundred  years 
intermarried,  and  through  nine  hundred  years  were 
in  a  process  of  mysterious  decay.  The  opinion  of 
many  of  our  Revolutionary  fathers  was,  that  half  the 
thrones  of  Europe  were  filled  by  persons  more  or 
less  erratic  on  account  of  descending  from  relatives. 
It  was  one  of  the  propositions  Jefferson  often  talked 
about  in  private,  that  the  high  places  of  Europe  were 
filled  with  imbeciles,  the  results  of  consanguineous 
marriages.  The  rule  of  the  Church  of  England  to- 
day on  this  topic  is  more  strict  than  has  been  that  of 
some  decayed  royal  houses. 

7.  The  marriage  of  highly-gifted  persons  of  differ- 
ent lines  of  descent  is  a  method  of  improving  the 
upper,  but  only  the  upper,  that  is,  the  most  intel- 
lectual and  virtuous,  portion  of  the  human  family. 

Face  to  face  with  the  question,  What  is  God's  sift- 
ing-machine  in  his  own  application  of  the  laws  of 
hereditary  descent  to  man's  improvement?  I  must 
whisper,  that,  for  one,  I  think  there  is  an  indication 
in  nature  as  to  what  parties  should  enter  into  mar- 
riage.    It  is  a  solemn  moment.     This  house  is  still. 


264  HEREDITY. 

\ 

Do  not  say  that  I  am  uttering  blasphemy  if  I  affirm 
that  God  speaks  in  a  pure  and  permanent  first  love. 
Is  there  a  human  being  of  the  average  order,  to 
whom  Providence  does  not  send  that  indication  of 
duty  ?  When  it  is  sent,  it  is  to  be  -respected  as  a 
Divine  sign.  We  are  not  left  in  ignorance  on  this 
most  critical  of  all  points.  I  hold  that  in  the  laws 
of  the  supreme  affections  a  pillar  of  fire  is  set  up 
before  men,  for  their  guidance ;  and,  if  the  noble 
prefer  the  noble,  it  is  well  they  should.  That  is  for 
the  benefit  of  the  race.  If  the  degraded  prefer  the 
degraded,  how  do  we  know  but  that  is  well  they 
should  ?  Extinction  is  before  them  the  sooner.  We 
have  learned  to  face  terrific  facts  here ;  and  among 
other  facts  we  have  faced  the  circumstance  that  God 
puts  an  end  to  an  incorrigibly  wicked  family  in  this 
world.  The  subtle  laws  by  which  supreme  affections 
are  determined  are  the  sifting-machine  of  the  Divine 
powers.  And,  subtle  as  the  laws  are ;  discussed  fool- 
ishly in  parlor,  in  pulpit,  in  press,  and  on  the  plat- 
form ;  degraded  age  after  age  by  vice ;  prated  about 
only  too  superficially  by  poetry,  they  nevertheless 
have  retained  their  sanctity.  All  around  the  globe, 
the  word  that  hushes  humanity  quickest,  next  after 
the  name  of  God,  is  the  name  of  first  love.  Such 
is  the  fact  of  human  experience ;  and  when  I  stand 
here  to  assert  that  the  Divine  indications  in  this 
particular  are  not  given  out  at  random,  and  that, 
where  a  supreme  affection  ?s  granted,  there  a  Divine 
indication  of  duty  is  to  be  discerned,  you  will  find 
the  better  part  of  the  philosophy  of  the   globe  on 


THE  DESCENT   OF   BAD   TRAITS  AND   GOOD.    265 

my  side ;  you  will  find  the  better  part  of  poetiy  on 
my  side.  Of  what  have  the  best  singers  loved  to 
tell  us  oftenest,  if  it  be  not  of  the  first  supreme  affec- 
tion ?  Where  is  there  any  thing  so  hallowed,  inside 
the  whole  range  of  secular  discussion,  as  this  un- 
speakable theme  ?  God  grant  that  the  spirit  of  our 
German  fathers,  who  found,  according  to  Tacitus, 
something  celestial  in  woman,  who  revered  her  re- 
sponses, and  buried  the  adulterer  alive  in  the  mud, 
and  whipped  the  adulteress  through  the  streets,  may 
be  the  permanent  principle  of  our  Anglo-Saxon  civil- 
ization !  for,  if  it  be  not,  I  foresee  only  the  fate  of 
Rome  for  the  sins  of  Rome,  only  the  fate  of  Sardan- 
apalus  for  the  sins  of  Sardanapalus.  The  vengeance 
of  decay  has  seized  upon  every  nation  that  has 
violated  these  subtile  laws.  Hereditary  descent  itself 
becomes  a  consuming  curse  to  every  luxurious  age 
that  loses  its  purity  or  falls  into  such  callousness  that 
it  cannot  discern  God's  touch  in  these  supreme  nat- 
ural indications  of  his  will.     [Applause.] 

8.  Even  were  the  marriage  of  highly-gifted  per- 
sons of  different  lines  of  descent  to  be  made  the 
custom  of  civilization,  there  would  yet  remain  in  the 
lower  portion  of  the  race  a  majority  of  beings  of 
inferior  minds  of  which  heredity  would  perpetuate 
the  deficiencies.  (Ribot,  Heredity,  American  edition, 
pp.  289-300.) 

Men  talk  superficially  of  this  theme  who  suppose 
that  it  is  a  simple  one,  and  that,  if  we  could  make 
arrangements  to  suit  ourselves,  the  average  ability  of 
the  race  might  easily  V  lifted  to  twice  its  present 


266  HEREDITY. 

height.  You  might  lift  a  portion  of  the  ability  and 
moral  merit  of  the  race  by  the  measure  here  dis- 
cussed ;  but  even  then  you  would  lift  but  a  portion. 
There  would  be,  I  suppose,  more  than  half  the  nu- 
merical size  of  the  race  below  the  average  needed 
by  our  tasks.  What  shall  be  done  with  that  lower 
portion  of  humanity?  Is  the  problem  concerning 
its  improvement  by  hereditary  descent  yet  insoluble  ? 

9.  The  superior  has  naturally  a  supreme  affection 
for  the  superior,  and  not  for  the  inferior. 

10.  Many  writers  hold  that  a  physically  and  mor- 
ally superior  race  united  with  an  inferior  one  lowers 
itself  without  raising  the  other,  so  that  all  such  alli- 
ances are  a  loss  to  civilization. 

The  question  is  whether  such  marriages  are  justi- 
fied by  the  subtle  indications  of  which  I  have  been 
speaking  with  bated  breath.  If  they  are  not,  beware 
how  you  cross  the  current  of  God's  purposes  in  natu- 
ral law !  You  say  the  current  is  not  very  swift  here. 
But  if  it  is  a  current  which  God  urges  on,  no  matter 
how  slowly  it  moves,  it  carries  with  it  the  infinities 
and  the  eternities,  and  you  must  not  try  to  stem  the 
force  of  what  is  deeper  than  all  thought  can  sound, 
and  more  powerful  than  imagination  can  measure. 
Slight  indications,  you  say  ?  My  feeling  is  that  the 
instinct  of  the  poets  is  right,  and  that  the  severest 
philosophical  thought  on  this  topic  is  right.  Each 
proclaims  precisely  what  many  writers  do  in  the 
name  of  exact  historical  investigation,  —  that  usually 
there  is  a  physical  and  a  moral  deterioration  in  the 
case  supposed.     Of  course  I  remember  what  inter 


THE   DESCENT    OF   BAD   TEAITS   AND   GOOD.    267 

marrying  has  done  for  nations  standing  nearly  on 
a  level  with  each  other.  But  the  inferior  race  is 
not  lifted  as  much  as  the  higher  is  lowered,  when 
the  difference  in  the  level  of  the  two  is  great  origi- 
nally. 

11.  There  has  hardly  been  produced  in  history  a 
great  nation,  or  a  great  man,  not  composed  of  very 
diverse  inherited  complementary  elements;  but  the 
intermingling  has  usually  been  of  strong  bloods. 

12.  The  application  of  the  laws  of  hereditary  de- 
scent to  human  improvement  is,  therefore,  beset  with 
great  natural  difficulties,  and  will  continue  to  be  so, 
until,  by  other  means  than  the  laws  of  heredity,  the 
intellectual,  and  especially  the  moral,  averages  of 
merit  in  the  human  family  shall  be  greatly  height- 
ened. 

Dana  in  his  Geology  raises  the  question  whether  a 
being  better  than  man  is  to  succeed  the  human  race 
on  this  planet.  {The  Geological  Story  briefly  told,  pp. 
253-255.)  Superior  to  any  form  of  life  now  on  the 
globe,  what  will  be  that  future  creature,  as  much 
better  than  man  as  he  is  better  than  the  brutes  which 
he  follows  in  the  line  of  development  ?  We  know,  as 
Agassiz  has  taught  us,  that  the  fish  and  the  serpent 
have  horizontal  spinal  columns,  but  that  the  highest 
animal  organisms  below  our  own  have  spinal  columns 
in  oblique  position,  and  that  at  last  man  has  attained 
the  erect  attitude,  and  so  has  fulfilled  the  possibilities 
of  his  anatomical  structure.  But  there  are  those 
who  Bay,  that,  just  as  in  past  geological  ages  there 
were  premonitions  of  better  things  to  come,  so  in  this 


268  HEREDITY. 

Inst  geological  age,  in  the  filling-up  of  man's  ethical 
capacities,  and  in  the  descent  upon  him  of  a  spiritual 
power  not  his  own,  there  is  a  prediction  perfectly 
parallel  to  many  a  prophecy  made  in  the  geological 
ages  that  have  gone  by,  of  a  world  in  which  a  supe- 
rior being  will  appear,  and  of  which  the  law  will  be 
righteousness.     [Applause.] 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 

By  JOSEPH  COOK. 


HISTORY  OF   THE  LECTURES. 


The  Bibliolheca  Sacra,  January,  1878. 

Mr.  JOSEPH  Cook  was  invited,  early  in  September,  1875,  by  th« 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  of  Boston,  to  lead  the  noon 
prayer  meeting  in  the  Meiouaon  daily  for  a  week,  and  to  make  on 
each  occasion  an  address  of  half  an  hour  in  length.  After  four  of 
these  services,  it  was  found  that  the  audience  had  quadrupled  in  size. 
Mr.  Cook  was  requested  to  continue  his  addresses  daily  through 
another  week.  On  Monday  noon,  Sept.  23,  the  subject  was  "  Final 
Permanence  of  Moral  Character;  or,  The  Doctrine  of  Future  Pun- 
ishment," and  it  was  noticed  that  a  hundred  ministers  were  in  the 
audience.  Mr.  Cook  was  then  requested  to  speak  on  the  Atonement, 
on  a  Sabbath  evening,  in  Park-street  Church.  He  complied  with 
this  request,  and  spoke  to  an  audience  filling  the  house  to  its  utmost 
capacity.  He  was  then  invited  by  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation to  speak  every  Monday  noon,  in  the  Meionaon,  for  twelve 
weeks.  Oct.  25  his  subject  was  "  Boston  Sceptical  Cliques."  "The 
Daily  Advertiser"  had  a  reporter  present,  who  reproduced  a  part  of 
•he  address.  "  The  Springfield  Republican  "  began  to  ca'l  attention 
to  the  large  number  of  ministers  and  scholars  who  were  present  at 
the  Monday  Lectures.  It  was  suggested,  in  many  quarters,  that 
these  lectures  should  be  continued  regularly  through  the  winter. 
Meantime,  Mr.  Cook  was  delivering  one  course  of  lectures  at  Am- 
herst College,  and  another  at  Mount  Holyoke  Seminary,  largely  on 
Materialism,  Evolution,  and  various  biological  topics.  The  Meio- 
naon Hall  seats  about  eight  hundred  persons,  and  in  January,  1876, 
was  completely  filled  by  Mr.  Cook's  hearers.  Alter  four  months 
had  passed,  the  assemblies  were  occasionally  gathered  in  Bromfield- 
atreet  Church.  The  lectures  continued  to  he  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  until  May,  18.76,  when,  at  a 
meeting  in  Bromfield-street  Church, resolutions. were  passed  found- 
ing the  Boston  Monday  Lectureship,  and  placing  it,  for  the  next 
season,  under  the  care  of  a  committee,  consisting  of  Prof.  E.  P. 
Gould  of  the  Newton  Theological  Institute,  the  Kev.  Dr.  E.  B. 
Webb  of  Boston)  the  Rev.  Dr.  McKeown,  the  Rev.  Samuel  Cutler, 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Doming,  the  Rev,  Edward  Edmunds,  and  the  Rev. 
\V.  M.  Baker,  —  men  of  different  evangelical  denominations.  The 
leclures  for  1S75-70'  continued  eight  months,  and  closed,  with  the 
forty-fifth  of  the  course,  ou  the  last  Monday  in  May,  in  Bromliclu- 
Kreet  Church. 

In  Octoher,  187G,  the  lectures  were  resumed  in  the  Meionaon; 
but  the  hall  was  found  to  be  too  small  for  the  audience.    It  was, 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


therefore,  soon  transferred  to  Park-street  Church.  Two  Vctures 
were  given  in  this  large  auditorium,  when  it  was  found  to  be  much 
too  si"all,  and  the  audiences  were  crowded  out  into  Tremont  Tem- 
ple. The  first  lecture  there  was  given  Nov.  13, 1876.  This  hall  will 
contain  from  twenty-five  hundred  to  three  thousand  people,  and 
was  often  more  than  full  in  the  winter  of  1S76-77.  During  the 
delivery  of  a  course  of  thirteen  lectures  on  "  Biology,"  and  of  eleven 
on  "Transcendentalism,"  and  of  eleven  on  "Orthodoxy,"  it  was 
often  necessary  to  turn  hearers  away,  as  they  could  not  obtain 
standing-room.  From  the  forty- fifth  lecture  "The  Boston  Daily 
Advertiser"  published  full  stenographic  reports  of  the  lectures. 
The  reporter's  manuscript  was  revised  by  the  lecturer.  "  The  New- 
York  Independent "  regularly  republished  the  lectures  from  Feb- 
ruary, 1876.  "The  Cincinnati  Gazette"  did  the  same;  and  a  large 
number  of  newspapers  throughout  the  country  published  extracts 
from  them.  In  the  course  of  the  winter  a  few  replies  to  certain 
statements  in  the  lectures  were  made  by  Rev.  Dr.  James  Freeman 
Clarke  and  other  Unitarians,  by  Rev.  Dr.  Miner  and  other  Univer- 
salist  ministers. 

From  February,  1876,  most  of  the  Boston  Monday  Lectures  were 
republished  in  London  by  the  firm  of  R.  D.  Dickinson,  Farringdon 
Street.  Individual  lectures  were  republished  in  "The  Christian 
World  Pulpit,"  and  other  theological  serials  of  Great  Britain.  At 
the  close  of  the  course  for  1876-77,  in  May,  eighty  lectures  had  been 
given,  of  which  all  from  the  forty-fifth  had  been  published.  In 
September,  1877,  James  R.  Osgood  and  Company  issued  "  Biology, 
with  Preludes  on  Current  Events,"  a  collection  of  thirteen  Boston 
Monday  Lectures.  This  volume,  at  the  beginning  of  December,  1877, 
was  in  its  twelfth  edition.  In  November  the  same  house  issued 
another  course  of  Mr.  Cook's  lectures,  entitled  "Transcenden- 
talism," and  announced  still  another  course,  entitled  "  Orthodoxy." 

Oct.  1,  a  course  of  ten  lectures  on  "Conscience"  was  opened, 
and,  Dec.  10,  a  course  of  ten  on  "  Hereditary  Descent."  Full  steno- 
graphic reports,  revised  by  Mr.  Cook,  are  now  published  in  "The 
Boston  Daily  Advertiser,'-'  "The  New-York  Independent,"  "The 
Cincinnati  Gazette,"  and  "  The  New- York  Advocate."  Very  num- 
erous other  papers  publish  large  extracts  from  them.  At  least  a 
hundred  thousand  copies  appear  weekly.  The  lectures  are  regularly 
repubbshed  in  London. 

It  ought  to  be  added,  that  since  the  close  of  his  lectures  in  May, 
1877,  Mr.  Cook  has  delivered  several  of  them  in  New-York  city, 
Rochester  and  Syracuse,  N.Y.,  Princeton,  N.J.,  and  various  other 
places;  has  also  supplied  various  pulpits  in  Boston  and  other  cities. 
Before  a  critic  passes  any  severe  criticism  on  these  lectures,  he  may 
wisely  ask  himself  whether,  without  having  a  previously  established 
reputation,  he  would  be  able  for  two  years  to  interest  congregations 
containing  sometimes  fifteen  hundred  hearers,  of  whom  sometimes 
five  hundred  are  liberally  educated  men,  assembled  in  the  midst  of 

firessing  engagements,  anil  in  the  whirl  of  a  great  city;  and  whether, 
q  addition  to  his  Monday-noon  exercises,  he  would  be  able  to  super- 
Intend  the  printing  of  three  volumes  of  his  lectures  on  abstruse 
and  complicated  themes,  to  preach  frequently  on  the  sabbath,  and 
occasionally  to  deliver  sermons,  each  one  of  which  is  from  one  t* 
two  hours  in  length. 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


BIOLOGY. 

WITH  PRELUDES  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

Three  Colored  Illustrations.    12mo.    $1.50. 


CONTENTS. 

LECTURES. 

I.  HlXLEY  AND  TVNDALL  OX  EVOLUTION. 

II.  The  Concessions  of  Evolutionists. 

III.  The  Concessions  of  Evolutionists. 

IV.  The  Microscope  and  Materialism. 

V.  Lotze,  Beale,  and  Huxley  on  Living  Tissues. 

VI.  Life  or  Mechanism  —  Wnicn  ? 

VII.  Does  Death  end  All  ?    Involution  and  Evolution. 

VIII.  Does  Death  end  All?    The  Nerves  and  the  Soul. 

IX.  Does  Death  end  All  ?    Is  Instinct  Immortal  ? 

X.  Does  Death  end  All?    Bain's  Materialism. 

XI.  Automatic  and  Influential  Nerves. 

XII.  Emerson's  Views  on  Immortality. 

XIII.  Ulrici  on  the  Spiritual  Body. 

PRELUDES. 

I.  Gift-Enterprises  in  Politics. 

II.  Safe  Popular  Freedom. 

III.  Daniel  Webster's  Death. 

IV.  Civil-Service  Reform. 
V.  Authorities  on  Biology. 

VI.  Boston  and  Edinburgh. 

VlJL.  The  Gulf-Current  in  History. 


TRANSCENDENTALISM. 

WITH  PRELUDES  ON  CURRENT  EVENTS. 

12mo.     $1.50. 


CONTENTS. 

LECTURES. 
I,    Intuition,   Instinct,   Experiment,   Syllogism,  as  Trsti 

of  Truth. 
II,    Transcendentalism  in  Nrcw  England. 

III.  Theodore  Parker's  Absolute  Religion. 

IV.  Caricatured  Definitions  in  Religious  Sciencb. 
V.    Theodore  Parker  on  the  Gjilt  of  Sin. 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


VI.  Final  Permanence  of  Moral  Character. 

VII.  Can  a  Perfect  Being  permit  Evil  ? 

VIII.  The  Religion  required  by  the  Nature  of  Things. 

IX.  Theodore  Parker  on  Communion  with  God  as  Personal 

X.  The  Trinity  and  Tritheism. 

XI.  FRA  3MENTARINESS   OF   OUTLOOK  UPON  THE   DlVINE  NATUKB. 

PRELUDES. 

I.  The  Children  of  the  Perishing  Poor. 

II.  The  Failure  of  Strauss's  Mythical  Theory. 

IH.  Chalmers's  Remedy  for  the  Evils  of  Cities. 

IV.  Mexicanized  Politics. 

V.  Yale,  Harvard,  and  Boston. 

VI.  The  Right  Direction  of  the  Religiously  Irresolute. 

VII.  Religious  Conversation. 

VIII.  George  Whitefleld  in  Boston. 

IX.  Circe's  Cup  in  Cities. 

X.  Civil-Service  Reform. 

XI.  Plymouth  Rock  as  the  Corner-Stone  of  a  Factory. 


CRITICAL  ESTIMATES  (AMERICAN). 


Rev.  Prof.  A.  P.  Peabody  of  Barnard  University,  in  The  Independent. 

Joseph  Cook  is  a  phenomenon  to  he  accounted  for.  No  other 
American  orator  has  done  what  he  has  done,  or  any  thine;  like  it, 
and,  prior  to  the  experiment,  no  voice  would  have  been  bold  enough 
to  predict  its  success. 

We  reviewed  Mr.  Cook's  "  Lectures  on  Biology  "  with  unqualified 
praise.  In  the  present  volume  we  find  tokens  of  the  same  genius, 
the  same  intensity  of  feeling,  the  same  lightning  flashes  of  impas- 
sioned eloquence,  the  same  viselike  hold  on  the  rapt  attention  and 
absorbing  interest  of  his  hearers  and  readers.  We  are  sure  that  we 
are  unbiassed  by  the  change  of  subject;  for,  though  we  dissent  from 
some  of  the  dogmas  which  the  author  recognizes  in  passing,  there 
is  hardly  one  of  his  consecutive  trains  of  thought  in  which  we  are 
not  in  harmony  with  him,  or  one  of  his  skirmishes  in  wlrich  our 
sympathies  are  not  wholly  on  his  side. 

Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Hill,  Ex-President  of  LTarvard  University,  in  the  Christian 

Register. 

The  attempt  of  sundry  critics  to  depreciate  Mr.  Cook's  science, 
because  he  is  a  minister,  is  very  ill  judged.  These  Lectures  are 
crowded  so  full  of  knowledge,  of  thought,  of  argument,  illumined 
with  such  passages  of  eloquence  and  power,  spiced  so  frequently 
with  deep-cutting  though  good-natured  irony,  that  I  could  make  no 
abstract  from  them,  without  utterly  mutilating  them. 

The  Princeton  Review. 

Mr.  Cook  has  already  become  famous;  and  these  Lectures  arc 
among  the  chief  works  that  have,  and  we  may  say  justly,  made  him 
60.    Then  celebrity  is  due  partly  to  the  place  and  circumstances  of 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


their  delivery,  but  still  more  to  their  inherent,  power,  without  which 
no  adventitious  aids  could  have  lifted  them  into  the  deserved  promi- 
nence they  have  attained.  .  .  .  Mr.  Cook  is  a  great  mastervof  analy- 
sis. .  .  .  The  Lecture  on  the  Atonement  is  generally  just,  able,  and 
unanswerable.  .  .  .  We  think,  on  the  whole,  that  Mr.  Cook  shows 
singular  justness  of  view  in  his  manner  of  treating  the  most  difficult 
and  perplexing  themes,  for  example,  God  in  Natural  Law,  and  the 
Trinity. 

Springjield  Republican. 

This  new  preacher  of  modern  Orthodoxy,  delivered  his  Fifty-firot 
Monday  Lecture  under  the  caption  "  Life  or  Mechanism  —  "Which  ?  " 
this  week  in  the  Boston  Park-street  Church,  which  was  crowded  — 
even  to  the  galleries,  aisles,  and  pulpit-stairs  —  with  an  audience 
mostly  composed  of  men,  and  representing,  to  a  large  degree,  the 
culture  and  intellect  of  Boston  and  vicinity.  This  Monday  Lecture- 
ship is  now  an  established  institution,  and  in  its  growing  popularity 
will  tax  pretty  severely  the  quality  of  Mr.  Cook.  He  has  so  far, 
however,  met  the  issue  squarely,  and  shows  no  signs  of  emptiness  or 
flagging.  .  .  .  Mr.  Cook  has  in  his  favor  a  happy  combination  of  per- 
sonal advantages,  —  a  good  presence,  mental  grasp,  considerable  per- 
sonal magnetism,  logical  alertness  and  acuteuess;  a  habit  of  minute 
and  precise  analysis,  with  sufficient  repetition  of  important  details; 
a  poetic  and  dramatic  gift,  lighting  up  what  might  else  be  dry  and 
heavy  with  frequent  flashes  of  wit  and  fancy,  and  literary  and  his- 
torical illustration;  a  restless  fervor,  the  outcome  of  an  excess  of 
physical  nervousness,  which,  however,  is  never  disconcerted;  and 
withal,  a  fine  mastery  of  good,  copious  Saxon  English. 

Boston  Daily  Advertiser. 

At  high  noon  on  Monday,  Tremont  Temple  was  packed  to  suffo- 
cation and  overflowing,  although  five  thousand  people  were  in  the 
Tabernacle  at  the  same  hour.  The  Temple  audience  consisted 
chiefly  of  men,  and  was  of  distinguished  quality,  containing  hun- 
dreds of  persons  well  known  in  the  learned  professions.  Wendell 
Phillips,  Edward  Everett  Hale,  Bronson  Alcott,  and  many  other 
citizens  of  eminence,  sat  on  the  platform.  No  better  proof  than  the 
character  of  the  audience  could  have  been  desired  to  show  that  Mr. 
Cook's  popularity  as  a  lecturer  is  not  confined  to  the  evangelical 
denominations.    (Feb.  7.) 

It  is  not  often  that  Boston  people  honor  a  public  lecturer  so  much 
as  to  crowd  to  hear  him  at  the  noontide  of  a  week-day;  and  when  it 
does  this  month  after  month,  the  fact  is  proof  positive  that  his  sub- 
ject is  one  of  engrossing  interest.  Mr.  Cook,  perhaps  more  than  any 
gentleman  In  the  lecture-field  the  past  few  years,  has  been  so 
honored.    (Feb.  14.) 

The  Independent. 

We  know  of  no  man  that  is  doing  more  to-day  to  show  the  rea- 
Bonableness  of  Christianity,  and  the  unreasonableness  of  unbelief; 

0>r  lb/  we  know  <,f  any  one  who  is  doing  it  with  such  admirable 
tolerance,  yet  dramatic  intensity. 

George  Sf.  Beard,  Jf.D.,  in  the  New-York  Graphic. 

It  is  said  that  Mr.  Cook  misrepresents  modern  science.  Tins  criti- 
cism Is  made  mostly  by  those  who  do  not  read  all  his  books;  orjidge 
by  the  original  reports  at  the  beginning  of  the  series,  or  by  floating 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 


fragments  in  the  papers,  or  by  general  hearsay;  or  very  likely  by 
those  who  themselves  know  little  of  science,  or  at  least  who  are  not 
versed  on  all  sides  of  his  subjects.  His  work,  as  it  now  stands,  aftei 
many  and  careful  revisions,  represents  fairly  the  present  state  ol 
science  on  the  subject  of  which  he  treats, — of  the  very  latest  and 
best  researches.  Indeed  inquirers  who  will  read  all  of  his  work,  and 
not  part  of  it,  and  who  are  sufficiently  endowed  with  the  scientific 
sense  to  separate  the  philosophical  reasonings  from  the  facts  on 
which  the  reasonings  are  based,  will  find  therein  the  clearest  and 
most  compact  statements  of  the  theories  and  difficulties  of  evolution, 
of  the  movements  of  bioplasm,  and  of  physiological  experiments  on 
(laoapitated  animals  and  on  the  electrical  irritation  of  the  brain,  that 
appesa  it  pcrular  literature. 

Professor  John  McCrady,  in  The  Literary  World. 

Mr.  Cook's  Lectures  upon  Biology  have  done  good  service  in 
making  known  to  a  Boston  audience  the  researches  of  such  men  as 
Lionel  Beale  in  England,  and  the  thoughts  of  such  men  as  Hermann 
Lotze  in  Germany,  besides  the  admissions  and  inconsistencies  of  the 
practical  materialists,  and  a  valuable  review  of  the  whole  state  of 
the  battle  by  an  able  and  fearless  theological  observer  like  himself. 
The  publication  of  these  Lectures  cannot  fail  to  be  of  service  to  the 
extra-scientific  world  in  general.  The  book  well  presents  to  out- 
siders a  certain  little-known  stage  of  conservative  scientific  thought, 
which  they  cannot  reach  anywhere  else  in  so  accessible  and  compact 
a  form.  Its  extremely  popular  form,  though  quite  disturbing  to  the 
nervous  equilibrium  of  a  confirmed  man  of  science,  is,  nevertheless, 
well  fitted  for  those  it  aims  to  inform,  —  the  great  free,  intelligent, 
and  religious-minded  public,  who  have  not  had  their  heads  squeezed 
by  specialistic  boards  and  bandages  into  strange  and  fantastic 
models  of  approved  scientific  monstrosity;  the  people,  in  short,  who 
have  not  made  philosophical  Flatheads  of  themselves  for  the  sake 
of  some  narrow  mole's  track  of  scientific  investigation  known  as  a 
"  specialty." 

This  specialism,  indeed,  is  aiming  to  destroy  all  freedom  of  thought 
and  speech,  and,  by  consequence,  all  philosophic  thought  whatsoever, 
by  forbidding  every  man  to  express  an  opinion  011  any  subject  save 
his  own  specialty.  It  has  all  the  narrow  intolerance  of  Comte'a 
Positivism;  and  I,  for  one,  honor  Mr.  Cook  for  his  courage  in  taking 
it  by  the  beard,  and  defying  it.  I  heartily  recommend  his  book  to 
tl.e  careful  reading  of  everybody  who  has  the  interest  of  scientific 
conservative  thought  at  heart.  Such  an  one  will,  at  the  least,  rise 
from  its  perusal  with  a  conception  of  the  existing  state  of  the  great 
battle  between  spirit  and  matter,  very  different  i'rom  that  which  Mr. 
Huxley,  with  the  voice  of  a  dragon,  lays  down  in  his  "  Physical  Basis 
of  Life;"  and,  instead  of  "matter  and  law  devouring  spirit  and 
spontaneity,"  he  will  see  how  great  cause  there  is  for  anticipating 
the  opposite  result. 

Indeed,  the  progress  of  science  means,  to  my  apprehension,  the 
very  opposite  of  all  that  Mr.  Huxley  contends  for  in  that  essay, 
Spirit  and  spontaneity  are  slowly  indeed,  but  surely,  advancing 
along  a  path  which  will  end  in  their  completely  devouring  matte* 
and  law.  The  reality  of  the  universe  will  prove  to  be  the  spirit : 
the  illusion  of  it,  the  matter  ;  while  natural  law  will  declare  itself 
nothing  more  than  the  self-consistency  of  untrammelled  spontaneity 


BOSTON   MONDAY  LECTURES. 


Professor  Borden  P.  Bowne  of  Boston  University,  in  the  Sunday  Afternoon. 

In  the  chapters  on  the  Theories  of  Life,  these  discussions  are,  in 
many  respects,  models  of  argument;  and  the  descriptions  of  the 
facts  under  discussion  are  often  unrivalled  for  both  scientific  exact- 
ness, and  rhetorical  adequacy  of  language.  In  the  present  state  of 
the  debate  there  is  no  better  manual  of  the  argument  than  the 
work  in  hand.  The  emptiness  of  the  mechanical  explanation  of 
Vie  was  nsver  more  clearly  shown. 

Appletons1  Journal. 

It  may  be  said  that  the  distinguishing  and  striking  characteristic 
of  Mr.  Cook's  work  is,  that  he  pours  out  the  treasures  of  the  latest 
German  thought  before  audiences  and  readers  whose  ideas  of  sci- 
ence and  philosophy  have  been  moulded  almost  exclusively  by  that 
English  school,  which,  as  Taine  says,  tends  naturally  (by  racial  in- 
heritance) to  materialistic  views  of  life.  Our  knowledge  of  the  author 
Is  confined  to  what  we  can  obtain  from  his  book ;  but  this  is  amply 
sufficient  to  show  that  his  intellectual  equipment  has  been  obtained 
in  Germany,  and  is  truly  German  in  its  comprehensiveness  and  pre- 
cision. .  .  .  Aside  from  the  rhetorical  brilliancy  of  his  style,  and  the 
aptness  and  fertility  of  his  illustrations,  Mr.  Cook's  method  of  ex- 
position is  remarkably  effective.  By  numbering  his  propositions, 
and  stating  them  in  the  concisest  possible  phrase,  he  secures  a  clear- 
ness and  intelligibility  that  are  seldom  so  wTell  maintained  in  a  long 
and  complicated  argument;  and  the  epigrammatic  guise  in  which 
most  of  his  principles  and  conclusions  are  presented  impresses  them 
with  peculiar  vividness  upon  the  mind  of  the  reader  or  hearer. 

The  Eclectic  Magazine. 

Mr.  Cook's  rhetorical  and  literary  skill  woidd  obtain  him  a  hear- 
ing on  any  subject  he  chose  to  discuss;  but  it  is  very  soon  seen,  that, 
beneath  the  glowing  and  almost  too  fervidly  eloquent  language,  there 
is  a  force  of  logic,  a  breadth  of  intellectual  culture,  and  a  mastery 
of  all  the  issues  involved,  such  as  are  seldom  exhibited  by  partici- 
pants on  either  side  in  the  great  controversy  between  religion  and 
science.  It  may  be  said  unqualifiedly  that  the  pulpit  has  never 
brought  such  comprehensiveness  and  precision  of  knowledge,  com- 
bined with  such  logical  and  literary  skill,  to  the  discussion  of  the 
questions  raised  by  the  sujiposed  tendency  of  biological  discovery. 

International  Iievi&o. 

The  lecture-form  is  retained,  and  the  implied  comments  of  the 
audience,  as  given  by  the  reporters,  are  furnished  us,  —  a  feature 
Which  will  strike  readers  favorably  or  otherwise,  as  their  ideas  arc 
more  or  less  severe  on  the  composition  and  make-up  of  a  book.  Fok 
our  part,  we  like  this  feature. 

The  Advance  {Chicago). 

The  reasons  given  for  retaining  the  responses  of  the  audience, 
bi  plunsc,  &c.,  srem  to  us  in  this  case  satisfactory.  It  is  frequently 
as  mueli  a  matter  of  significant  interest  to  know  how  statement* 
wire  received  by  such  an  audience  as  to  know  what  the  one  indi- 
Tidual   said.     This   Boston   Lectureship   is   altogether    uniquo   in 


8  BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES. 

the  recent  history  of  popular  exposition  of  abstruse  themes.  0  as 
has  to  go  back  to  the  time  of  Peter  Abelard  of  the  University  of 
Paris  for  a  parallel  to  it. 

The  Interior  (Chicago). 

These  Lectures  are  full  of  hard  thought  and  eloquent  exj ses- 
sion. They  dwell  on  the  profoundest  religious  themes,  and  in  tha 
most  incisive  way.  The  same  power  of  analysis,  sharpness  an  J 
precision  of  statement,  and  gorgeous  rhetoric,  which  characterize  A 
the  volume  on  "  Biology,"  are  conspicuous  here.  In  these  two  vol- 
ames  Mr.  Cook  has  given  us  the  most  forcible  and  readable  of  «U 
modern  defences  of  essential  Christian  truth  against  the  scientiliij 
and  philosophic  heresies  of  the  day. 

The  Standard  (Chicago). 

The  incisive,  trenchant  style  of  Mr.  Cook  has,  perhaps,  no  mora 
admirable  adaptation  and  application  than  to  the  demolition  of  the 
glittering  but  specious  logic  of  materialistic  philosophy.  It  is  a 
pleasure  to  the  intellect,  as  well  as  to  the  conscience,  to  follow 
M  r.  Cook  in  his  irresistible  iconoclasm  among  the  images  of  the  theo- 
rists who  substitute  evolution  for  God  in  the  grand  piocess  of 
cosmogony. 

Cincinnati  Gazette. 

It  must  be  admitted  by  the  most  captious  critic,  that  Mr.  Cook 
states  his  positions  with  wonderful  grace  and  clearness,  find  that  he 
fortifies  what  may  appear  most  paradoxical  by  a  remarkable  array 
of  illustration  and  argument. 

Boston  Traveller. 

There  is  no  denying  the  fact  that  Mr.  Cook  is  a  born  orator.  As  a 
popular  platform  speaker,  he  has  few  rivals,  and,  broaaly  speaking, 
we  might  say  no  superiors. 

Boston  Journal. 

These  Discourses  relate  to  the  great  problems  of  life  most  at  issue 
between  science  and  religion.  They  were  received  witn  eager  inter- 
est when  delivered;  and,  being  republished  in  whole  or  in  part  by 
the  American  and  English  papers,  they  were,  in  effect,  spoken  to  an 
audience  on  both  sides  of  the  sea.  Mr.  Cook's  eloquent  and  pic- 
turesque style  —which  has  in  it  a  touch  of  Emerson  and  a  touch  of 
Carlyle,  as  well  as  qualities  peculiarly  its  own  —  loses  little  by  trans- 
ference from  the  platform  to  the  printed  page;  and,  indeed,  the  lat- 
ter form  of  presentation  has  its  advantages,  as  being  more  conducive 
to  the  calm  and  leisure  which  subjects  of  so  much  importance 
icquire  for  their  adequate  consideration. 

New-  York  Christian  Intelligencer. 

"We  believe  this  book  ought  to  stand  and  will  stand  among  the 
v  ery  first  of  the  Apologies  of  the  last  quarter  of  this  century. 

The  Christian  Union. 

^lr.  Cook  is  profoundly  interested  in  his  themes.  Indeed,  he 
never  fails  to  be  kindled  into  enthusiasm  by  their  transcendent 


BOSTON   MONDAY  LECTURES. 


Importance.  He  understands  the  reach  of  the  physiological  ques- 
tions w  I.n  !i  he  discusses,  and  the  philosophical  problems  which  ho 
essays  to  solve.  His  mind  is  penetrating  and  subtle.  He  delights  in 
an  argument,  and  is  the  last  man  to  fear  an  antagonist.  It  would 
not  he  easy  to  decide  whether  he  possesses  the  logical  or  the  imagina- 
tive powers  in  excess. 

Illustrated _  Christian  Weekly. 

"We  enjoy  the  splendor  of  Mr.  Cook's  rhetoric  and  the  brilliancy 
of  his  imagination,  as  in  reading  a  poem. 

Church,  Journal  (New  York). 

His  style  is  peculiar.  It  is  clear,  abounding  in  most  expressive 
figure*,  with  perhaps  a  slight  shading  of  Carlyleism.  But  we  do  not 
now  recall  a  more  forcible  v  riter  of  the  day.  His  blows  at  Parker- 
ism,  Huxleyism,  and  Darv.  nism,  come  down  with  sledge-hammer 
force.  He  is  no  mere  declu.mer.  lie  speaks  with  the  authority  of 
a  man  who  has  studied  and  mastered  his  subject,  and  who  has  fairly 
dissected  the  fallacies  which  he  so  ably  exposes. 

The  Christian  at  Work. 

Mr.  Cook  has  taken  his  place  as  one  of  the  ablest  controversial- 
ists of  the  day.  His  logic  is  remorseless.  He  lays  every  thing  under 
tribute,  and  drives  every  nail  home. 

Worcester  Spy. 

As  a  thinker  he  has  notable  clearness  and  strength.  His  style 
is  full  of  life  and  vigor;  and  he  has  an  admirable  mastery  of  the 
power  of  expression;  but  these  alone  would  not  sufficiently  ex- 
plain the  great  success  of  his  Monday  Lectures.  The  true  explana- 
tion is,  that  he  selected  live  questions  for  discussion,  after  having 
studied  them,  and  taken  pains  to  understand  them  thoroughly.  He 
can  meet  the  most  perfectly  furnished  materialistic  speculators  on 
their  own  ground;  is  familial  with  all  the  outs  and  ins  of  their 
methods  01  reasoning;  and  is  able  to  match  their  knowledge  of  the 
studies  and  discoveries  in  physical  science,  which  they  use  in  support 
of  the  positions  they  endeavor  to  maintain. 

Hartford  Courant. 

The  volumes  containing  his  metaphysical  speculations  and  scien- 
tific treatment  of  the  problem  of  religion  sell  like  novels.  Mr.  Cook 
is  not  only  a  master  of  the  art  of  putting  things,  but  he  is  a  wit.  It 
Is  wit  none  the  less  because  it  is  used  for  a  serious  purpose. 

Presbyterian  Banner. 

The  folly  of  materialistic  philosophers  has  only  been  exceeded 
by  their  arrogance;  and  it  is  truly  refreshing  to  iind  their  inflated 
babbles  so  completely  punctured  and  dissipated  by  the  keen  thrust! 
of  Mr.  Cook's  unanswerable  logic. 

The  Penn.  Monthly  (Philadelphia). 

His  addresses  have  been  well  called  prose  poems.    Nothing  conld 
■eem  less  poetical  to  the  eye  than  his  numbered  paragraphs.    They 


10  BOSTON  MONDAY   LECTURES. 

look  like  a  series  of  theses  set  up  for  the  defiance  of  all  comers. 
But  ear  and  sense  alike  are  captivated  as  we  read,  and  we  are  forced 
to  recognize  a  master  of  English  prose. 

Religious  Herald  (Richmond,  Ya.J. 

No  man  in  America  is  just  now  attracting  more  attention  than 
Joseph  Cook,  and  his  Titanic  blows  are  telling  on  the  materialistio 
scepticism  of  the  day.  .  .  .  He  is  clear,  axiomatic,  and  irresistible 
through  all  his  arguments,  and,  while  always  courteous  to  opponents, 
is  often  keenly  satirical. 

The  Theological  Medium,  Nashville,  Tenn. 

His  learning  is  immense,  his  faculty  of  order  eminent,  his  imagi- 
nation very  brilliant,  and  his  logic  strong  and  close. 

New  Orleans  Times. 

The  Lectures  are  crowded  with  eloquent  passages,  telling  satire, 
and  keen,  critical,  and  precise  reasoning. 

San  Francisco  Evening  Bulletin. 

The  style  is  peculiarly  vivid,  presenting  occasionally  some  of  the 
characteristics  of  Carlyle.  The  book,  in  consequence  of  its  scope 
and  general  attractiveness,  is  destined  to  become  very  popular. 

San  Francisco  Bancroft's  Messenger. 

Possessed  of  a  calm,  critical,  and  methodical  mind,  Mr.  Cook  haa 
constructed,  from  the  material  at  his  disposal,  about  a  dozen  of  the 
most  interesting  essays  that  have  yet  appeared  on  the  relation  of 
religion  and  science.  On  almost  every  page  of  the  volume,  elo- 
quence leaves  its  mark. 

San  Francisco  Evening  Post. 

Emotion,  clearness,  and  sound  sense  are  the  weapons  with  which 
he  produces  conviction. 

The  Congregational  Quarterly. 

"We  can  most  heartily  commend  the  work  on  Orthodoxy  for  its 
graphic  power,  for  its  bold  and  manly  exhibitions  of  truth,  for  thu 
carefulness  in  general  of  its  distinctions,  for  the  magnetic  quality  of 
its  style,  for  its  clear  aim  and  direction;  in  short,  for  a  portrayal  of 
orthodoxy  such  as  is  reasonable  and  defensible. 

The  Bibliotheca  Sacra. 

There  is  no  other  work  on  biology,  there  is  no  other  work  on  the- 
ology, with  which  this  volume  of  lectures  can  well  be  compared,  tt 
Is  a  book  that  no  biologist,  whether  an  originator  or  a  mere  middle- 
man in  science,  would  ever  have  written.  Traversing  a  very  wide 
field,  cutting  right  across  the  territories  of  rival  specialists,  it  con- 
tains not  one  important  scientific  misstatement,  either  of  fact  or 
theory.  Not  only  tfie  propositions,  but  the  dates,  the  references,  the 
names,  and  the  histories  of  scientific  discoveries  and  speculations, 
are  presented  as  they  are  found  in  the  sources  whence  they  ar« 
Xaken,  or  at  least  with  only  verbal  and  minor  changes. 


BOSTON  MONDAY  LECTURES.  11 


CRITICAL  ESTIMATES  (FOREIGN). 


Rev.  R.  rayne  Smith,  Dean  of  Canterbury. 

The  lectures  are  remarkably  eloquent,  vigorous,  ami  powerful,  and 
no  one  could  read  tbein  without  great  benefit.  They  deal  with  very 
important  questions,  and  are  a  valuable  contribution  towards  solv- 
ing many  ol  the  difficulties  which  at  this  time  trouble  many  minds. 

Rev.  Dr.  Angus,  the  College,  Regent's  Park. 

These  Lectures  discuss  some  of  the  most  vital  questions  of  theol- 
ogy, and  examine  the  views  or  writings  of  Emerson,  Theodore 
Parker,  and  others.  They  are  creating  a  great  sensation  in  Boston, 
where  they  have  been  delivered,  and  are  wonderful  specimens  of 
shrewd,  clear,  and  vigorous  thinking.  They  are,  moreover,  largely 
illustrative,  and  have  a  fine  vein  of  poetry  running  through  theni. 
The  Lectures  on  the  Trinity  are  capitally  written;  and,  though  we 
are  not  prepared  to  accept  all  Mr.  Cook's  statements,  the  Lectures, 
as  a  whole,  are  admirable.  A  dozen  such  lectures  have  not  been 
Dublished  for  many  a  day. 

Rev.  Alexander  Raleigh,  D.D.,  of  London. 

The  Lectures  are  in  every  way  of  a  high  order.  They  are  profound 
and  yet  clear,  extremely  forcible  in  some  of  their  parts,  yet,  I  think, 
always  fair,  and  as  full  of  sympathy  with  what  is  properly  and 
purely  human  as  of  reverence  for  what  is  undoubtedly  divine. 

Rev.  John  Ker,  D.D.,  of  Glasgow. 

My  conviction  is,  that  they  are  specially  fitted  for  the  time,  and 
likely  above  all  to  be  useful  to  thoughtful  minds  engaged  in  seek- 
ing a  footing  amid  the  quicksands  of  doubt.  There  is  a  freshness, 
a  power,  and  a  felt  sincerity,  in  the  way  in  which  they  deal  with 
the  engrossing  questions  of  our  time,  and,  indeed,  of  all  time,  which 
should  commend  them  to  earnest  spirits  which  feel  that  there  must 
be  a  God  and  a  soul,  and  some  way  of  bringing  them  together,  and 
which  yet  have  got  confused  amid  the  negations  of  the  dogmatic 
scepticism  of  our  day.  I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  Mr.  Cook  four 
years  ago,  when  he  was  visiting  Europe  to  make  himself  acquainted 
with  dirxeient  forms  of  thought,  and  I  could  see  in  him  a  power  and 
resolution  which  foretold  the  mark  he  is  now  making  on  public 
opinion. 

Rev.  C.  IT.  Spurgeon. 

These  are  very  wonderful  Lectures.  We  bless  God  for  raising  up 
such  a  champion  for  his  truth  as  Joseph  Cook.  Pew  could  hunt 
down  Theodore  Parker,  and  all  that  race  of  misbelievers,  as  Mr. 
Cook  has  done.  He  has  strong  convictions,  the  courage  of  his  con- 
victions, and  force  to  support  liin  courage.  In  masoning,  the  infidel 
Earty  have  here  met  their  match.  We  know  of  no  other  man  one- 
alf  so  well  qualified  for  the  peculiar  service  of  exploding  the  pre- 


12  BOSTON   MONDAY  LECTURES. 


tensions  of  modern  science  as  this  great  preacher  in  -whom  Boston  is 
rejoicing.  Some  men  shrink  from  this  spiritual  wild-hoar  hunting, 
but  Mr.  Cook  is  as  happy  in  it  as  he  is  expert.  May  his  arm  be 
strengthened  by  the  Lord  of  hosts! 

London  Quarterly  Review. 

For  searching  philosophical  analysis,  for  keen  and  merciless  logic, 
for  dogmatic  assertion  of  eternal  truth  in  the  august  name  of  science 
mch  as  thrills  the  soul  to  its  foundations,  for  widely  diversified  and 
most  apt  illustrations  drawn  from  a-wide  field  of  reading  and  obser- 
vation, for  true  poetic  feeling,  for  a  pathos  without  any  mixture  of 
sentimentality,  for  candor,  for  moral  elevation,  and  for  noble  loyally 
to  those  great  Christian  verities  which  the  author  affirms  and  vindi- 
cates, these  wonderful  Lectures  stand  forth  alone  amidst  the  contem- 
porary literature  of  the  class  to  which  they  belong. 

London  Baptist  Magazine. 

Mr.  Cook's  "Monday  Lectures"  have  already  become  one  of  the 
most  popular  and  useful  institutions  of  America;  and  on  this  side 
the  Atlantic  we  know  of  no  author,  either  British  or  American,  who 
is  just  now  so  widely  read. 

Rev.  A.  Melville,  Glasgow. 

It  is  because  Mr.  Cook  refuses  no  real  help  that  offers  itself  to 
him  from  any  quarter,  that  he  finds  firm  footing  on  the  heights  to 
which  he  climbs.  His  lectures  present  most  valuable  training  for 
dealing  with  all  such  questions,  from  the  fact  that  they  take  so  wide 
a  range,  and  combine  so  skilfully  all  departments  of  truth. — Intro- 
duction to  Glasgow  edition  of  Boston  Monday  Lectures. 

The  British  Quarterly  Review. 
Mr.  Cook  is  a  man  of  wide  reading,  tenacious  memory,  acute 
discrimination,  and  great  power  of  popular  exposition.  Nothing 
deters  him.  He  plunges  in  medias  res,  however  abstruse  the  specu- 
lation, and  his  vigor  and  fire  carry  all  before  them.  He  has  intui- 
tive genius  for  pricking  wind-bags,  and  for  reducing  over-sanguine 
and  exaggerated  hypotheses  to  their  exact  value.  He  has  called  a 
halt  in  many  an  impetuous  march  of  science,  and  exposed  a  funda- 
mental fallacy  in  many  a  triumphant  argument. 

The  London  Spectator. 
The  incisiveness  and  raciuess  of  their  style  make  the  lectures 
decidedly  worthy  of  attention.  The  discussions  of  the  permanence 
of  moral  character  and  the  self-propagating  power  of  sin  are  striking 
and  forcible  in  no  small  degree.  The  lectures  on  the  barrenness  of 
ethics  without  a  personal  God,  and  on  "  Trinity  and  Tritheism,"  are 
full  of  true  and  elevating  thoughts,  and  genuine  and  wholesome 
Beutiment. 


*„*  For  sale  by  all  booksellers.    Sent,  postpaid,  on  receipt  of  the  price, 
V#  the  Piiblisliers, 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN"  &  CO.    Boston. 


No. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A  A      000  207  100    9 


